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Published: October 25th 2022
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Throughout our six month caravan odyssey, we have clearly been looked after. Despite the weather having smashed Eastern Australia this year, we have only experienced around one week of rain in total, none of it torrential, even though places we have just been to or places we were planning to travel to have received significant rain totals, high winds and large hail stones. An example is the rainfall total for nearby Tin Can Bay for the last week has been 368 mm.
We were originally planning to stay at a farm outside of Maryborough for a few days, however, the rain forecasts made it unwise to proceed with this plan. We changed our destination to Hervey Bay for three nights. On our way to Hervey Bay, we stopped off in Childers for lunch and a coffee, and were impressed with the town. Our table consisted of an old Singer Sewing Machine table. The name of the cafe was Insane Coffee, and it lived up to it's name. After arriving in Hervey Bay and having secured a protected powered caravan site in Tasman Caravan Park near Torquay Beach, Hervey Bay, we decided to bunker down for eight days to ride out
the extreme weather. Fortunately, we only had one inclement weather day whilst we were staying in Hervey Bay, and even that day was just intermittent rain.
We were surprised at the size of Hervey Bay when entering the city. The city has around fifty seven thousand residents, and is officially the Whale Watching capital of Australia. In 2019, Hervey Bay was named the first Whale Heritage site in the world. Around forty thousand humpback whales are expected to visit Hervey Bay in 2022. The Humpback Whale is the most acrobatic of all the species of whale, and can grow up to 18 metres in length and can weigh up to 30,000 kgs.
So what is the must do activity when visiting Hervey Bay? Go on a whale watching cruise of course, which proved to be fortunate timing, as it was the last week of the official whale watching season, with most of the whale pods having already left for their long journey to Antarctica. We headed out from Hervey Bay Marina on the Tasman Venture on a course for Platypus Bay, which lies on the lee side of K’Gari (formerly known as Fraser Island). It took an hour
on a fast catamaran to reach Platypus Bay, and it wasn’t long before we sighted our first pod of whales, a mother and calf, plus a large “escort” whale, which would stay with the mother and calf as a bodyguard for the long journey south. After watching the breaching antics of the calf, we headed for a nearby pod consisting of two mothers and two whale calves. They were very active in their breaching and fluke slapping, and we were able to get quite close to the pod. Amazing to see these gentle giants of the ocean close up. We spent two and a half hours whale watching in Platypus Bay before heading back to Hervey Bay. It was great to have a whale expert on board providing commentary and facts on the whales.
Hervey Bay has an Esplanade that runs for seventeen kms along the beaches that line the bay. There are many fine eateries that line The Esplanade, and we sampled a few for lunch during our stay. We went for a few long walks along the well constructed paths that border the beaches, and enjoyed some swims in the warm ocean water at a few of
the local beaches. Hervey Bay also has an extensive Botanic Gardens, which includes an Orchid House and Café, that we visited. Urangan was nearby to where we were staying, the feature of which is an 855 metre long jetty, which provides a great fishing platform for local anglers.
One of the little known facts that I dug up about Hervey Bay, is that it was the training grounds for Australia’s Z Commando Force, that played such a crucial role in destroying Japanese shipping during WW2, including the daring raid on Singapore Harbour that sunk seven ships. That raid was carried out by the brave commandos on the Krait, a small fishing vessel which has been fully restored and holds pride of place at Sydney’s Maritime Museum.
Next stop is Tin Can Bay, which is famous for it's dolphins.
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