What can I say about Hervey Bay. Hervey Bay is nice and can best be described as the Port Macquarie of southern Queensland – a lot of retirees moving up from the cities, buying houses for prices that the locals can’t afford and changing the face of the town. It is the gateway to K’gari (Fraser Island) and a heap of other nice and iconic places.
K’Gari (Fraser Island) is owned by the Butchulla people and is the largest sand island in the world measuring a cool 123km long by 25km wide. To think that it is all sand is pretty amazing. A couple of other fun facts:
1. The water that flows out of the creeks into the ocean is water that fell on the centre of the island up to 70-80 years ago. It sits in the sand like a massive sponge slowly seeping down.
2. The dingoes that roam the island are the last of the pure breed native dog. They are very much undomesticated and can cause a problem if they choose to.
3. The name is pronounced Gari but some dumb white fella decided to put a K’ in front of it to confuse everyone.
4. There are speed limits (and speed limit signs) on the beaches for all of the 4WD that come over for camping.
5. The beaches on the eastern side of the island are meant to be more deadly than most what with the dangerous rips and large bull shark numbers.
6. The trees on the island produce a chemical that make them very hardy against rotting in water making them very handy for jetty building. Timber was the major industry prior to it become a national park.
It really is an amazing island, so much so that we went out there twice. We floated down creeks on noodles which was extremely therapeutic and I could have done that over and over. I am not a massive fan of vehicles (and planes for that matter) on beaches but that beach is so deadly that it doesn’t really matter I guess. Seeing cars and tents tucked away in the bushes makes me realise that it would be a pretty cozy spot to spend the odd weekend there.
It was never on my bucket list but only out of ignorance more than anything else. Every now and then you need to pushed gently to open your eyes to some amazing places.
Nearby Hervey Bay are the towns of Bundaberg (Taribelang Bunda, Gooreng Gooreng, Gurang and Mailai), of Rum fame, and Maryborough (Kabi Kabi and Butchulla) of, can you believe, Mary Poppins fame. The author of these famous books was born right here in Maryborough. I don’t think we Australians are good at blowing our own trumpet, or at least blowing the trumpet of our famous folk. The Brits have their blue plaques highlighting places where famous people were or amazing deeds took place. Someone need only stay over night back in 1755 and there’ll be a blue plaque about it, and I love that. We on the other hand do not advertise such things. In fact we do worse than that, we tear things down such as the house that the Young brothers of AC/DC fame grew up in. These guys are musical royalty of the highest realm and we just ignore the fact instead of standing up proud and showing the world that they are one of us. Like in the movie The Castle, we should be putting all of these things in the “pool room” to show off when we have people over. I think one of the most scary stories I heard about heritage was the fact that there was a plan to level The Rocks and build an ultra modern area of Sydney. Can you imagine Sydney without that stunningly beautiful Rocks area. And if it went we would have nothing of that early settlement period. Luckily for us, Jack Mundey and the Unions placed a green ban protecting the Rocks and other heritage buildings. Next time you’re down in the Rocks and enjoying all of the quaint old buildings say a prayer of thanks for Jack and BLF. And let’s say a little more often, “this one’s going straight to the pool room”.
The history of Bundaberg Rum is a pretty cool one as well. Rum in the early NSW colony was actually our currency, heaven forbid. But with the sugar cane up north and the excessive amount of molasses just going to waste some smart dude decided that we should use that molasses to make the foulest diesel fuel of an alcoholic drink as there is and it became a household name today. Good luck to them.
As a New South Welshman the cry of “Queenslander” makes my blood boil (for my non-Australian friends let me just say, it is a sporting rivalry). But when I hear Queenslander in relation to houses my heart sings. These houses are what should be built in most places in Australia – they are built on stilts to allow cool breeze to flow up, have nice broad verandahs with wide eaves to keep the hot sun out and are designed to withstand floods. But apart from these very practical elements they are also absolutely beautiful. And those north of the border are quite proud of them and you can see it in the way they are renovated and maintained. Maryborough and surrounds have some pretty amazing examples of these quintessentially Queensland abodes. If only other parts of the country would adopt them.
So Hervey Bay was to be the last of the towns I was to stay at and thus, The New Phase Tour has come to an end. It encompassed 3 months in the UK, Ireland, Morrocco, the Balkans, Norway, Italy, Türkiye followed by rural towns in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, Northern Territory and Western Australia. I saw people and places that I have never seen and have had my mind blown on too many occasions to even recall them all. I am and will be eternally grateful for the opportunity that I was given to be able to do all of this for nearly 2 years. An experience I will never forget. Now I am set up in Dee Why enjoying yet another New Phase in life and have finally gotten around to posting the last of these pics. Anyway, hope you enjoyed following my travels. Not sure what is next but we’ll see. Thank you for all of your very kind feedback along the way.
