Hervey Bay

Hervey Bay is a city on the southeast Queensland coast, on a sheltered bay between the mainland and K'gari (Fraser Island). Humpback whales rest in the bay with their calves from July to November on their migration south, and in 2019 it was named the first Whale Heritage Site.

James Cook sailed past in 1770 and named the bay after Augustus Hervey, a lord of the Admiralty. The Butchulla people, the traditional owners of the coast and the island, fished and gathered shellfish in the bay for thousands of years. European settlement began with farms and timber getting in the late 19th century, and small seaside villages grew along the shore at Pialba, Scarness, Torquay and Urangan. The villages grew together into one town, which became a city in the 1970s.

Whale watching boats leave Great Sandy Strait Marina at Urangan each morning in the season, and ferries and barges cross from River Heads to K'gari. Sugar cane and macadamia nuts grow on the farms inland toward Maryborough, and prawns and scallops caught in the bay are landed at Urangan.

The Urangan Pier, built in the 1910s to load sugar and coal onto ships, reaches 868 m (2,848 ft) into the bay and is used for fishing. K'gari, an island made almost entirely of sand, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with freshwater lakes, rainforest growing on sand and the long ocean beach of its east coast. The Esplanade runs along the shore past parks, cafes and playgrounds. Each August the Hervey Bay Whale Festival welcomes the whales with a parade and a lantern walk.