Hervey Bay

Well Hervey Bay was pretty good. We'd gotten there via Greyhound bus out of Maroochydore which had only taken a couple hours out of our day, and caught a taxi to our "Woolshed Backpackers" only a block or two from the beach. This turned out to be the nicest hostel we'd stayed in to-date and so we booked for a couple more nights than first presumed and decided that going to Airlie beach and the Whitsundays was something we'd have to do another time. The first full day we had in H. B., the girls had decided to do a whale-watching venture.
I was fairly adament that I'd seen plenty of orca and humpback whales back home; enough so that I'd laughed at the price tag correlated to the tour. More than 100 dollars out of my pocket for whales seemed more-than-slightly ridiculous considering I was in a country that offers plenty of options for the equivalent amount of money, so I decided to take the day for myself and explore what Hervey Bay had to offer. One thing I learned about HB quickly though, was that there's not much to it. Granted, it is the great gateway to Fraser Island and probably exists for that sole reason, but in the 15 km length of the city I certainly couldn't see something unique and vibrant to spend time on. So I did the only thing any man in my situation would do... I hit up the beach. This I did more literally than you might understand now, but in time you will.
Anyway, I threw a towel on the ground and from that point on spent no-less than 7 hours in and around some of the best waters I'd ever experienced. The threat of sharks was constant in this region, though not yet the jelly-fish, and so I was slightly timid at first to swim further than wading-length. It wasn't long though before I was tempted further out by the amazing temperature of the sea and a beautiful sunny day, and so here I'd felt extremely content. But I was getting curious quickly about what else might be found further up this beach since my eye was catching a gleaming cafe on the corner, higher population density, and some interesting rock formations further out into the sea. As they say: "the grass is always greener..." and so I moved my towel 5 minutes up the beach just so I was directly positioned in front of the rocky establishments that popped out of the water 100 (or so) ft out. Lathered on some more sun screen, took a quick look at the best place to make a dive in the water, and ran like david hasselhoff straight through the sand and into the clear blue. Well I guess it wasn't so clear, because my dive ended up with a tragic 'crunch' and the gushing of blood coming somewhere off the bridge of my nose. My arm also suffered some pretty heavy contact-scratches as I tried to instinctivly shield the part of my body which was now injured ( my facial region) from the rock which I dove into under the water. As it turned out, I shouldn't have read the formations of rock and coral out to sea as something interesting to explore, but instead as a signpost for the fact that this part of the beach was heavily laden with the stuff even in the shore-line shallows.
Well somewhat embarrassed (but thankfully i'm on vacation, and remember that here we experience significantly less embarrassment) I stepped out of the water looking like a hollywood action hero who just survived an encounter with the Terminator, and walked towards my towel and the beach. Although the temptation did arise as a solution to the embarrassment factor, I didn't quite feel like sticking around in the water to wash off my war wounds because of the slight nuisance of sharks and their acute senses which hone into blood from kms out, so I just kept guiltily wiping off the blood with my Green-Island towel and walked back to the relative haven of my hostel. Slightly put off the beach now by the big gash in my nose, I opted instead to re-explore the city by walking the whole thing. The girls were still out looking at big masses of blubber until 5, and I reckoned that if there was something in Hervey Bay to discover, today would be the day I would discover it. After all we did have another day or so left at the place and we would have to find something to do later on, so really it was in all our best interests. That something turned out to be the movie theatre. Don't get me wrong, I tried to find something I really did, but after hastily discovering a casino-which-looked-like-a-mall-but-really-wasn't and the mcdonalds-mysteriously-all-staffed-by-mexican-migrants (there's a lot of M's) I really got put off by the whole place. It was nearly like being in the twilight zone, and to me the best way of getting back to reality was to go into a movie theatre and watch fake stuff. Nacho Libre was the film, and it was a good enough laugh to keep me chuckling at the stupidness even on the walk back to the woolshed.
The next couple days really only consisted of a hunt for some internet cafes, inquiries about doing a Fraser Island tour, and a pretty wicked little eatery that had a Canadian towel hung from the wall (As pictured below). The beach was something we'd neglected to do again, but I did have a hunt and through all the coral that was just washed up along the beach, finally picked a piece that I thought would be a good memento. Barring customs hating and punishing me for it, it's scheduled to be in the post and to get back home for sometime after Christmas along with some sand. Does anybody know if that's allowed? I think that's something that they don't care about... oh well time will tell. Well anyway that was Hervey Bay. Cheers.