Famous for whale watching and the biggest sand island on the world

Hervey Bay is a beach site in the Australian state of Queensland and is located about 300 km north of Brisbane on the coast.  Hervey Bay is less a single city, but rather a couple of coastal towns that merged along the bay. People flock to Hervey Bay every Whale season, which starts late July and goes through to early November. Is is also a gateway to Fraser Island (the biggest sand island of the world) and the southern Great Barrier Reef. The city has constant warm weather and its protection from the shore ensures almost wave-free beaches.

Fraser island - not for me!

In the early morning I reached my hostel after a 12 hour night bus trip from Airlie Beach. What I liked about my accomodation, the Woolshed Eco Lodge, was the great and quiet atmosphere. It was not as crowded as the other hostels on the east coast of Australia. Most people don't stay here for long and go straight to Fraser Island. The 3-day trip costs about 600$. You drive with a jeep across the island and camp. Many people already form groups before going there. It was too risky for me to go there and be the only single traveller amongst groups. In Australia, quite a lot of backpackers form groups. And with 30 years I am already one of the older backpackers here because many of them travel to Australia right after school. 

From the stories that were brought to me, the whole Fraser Island thing felt more like a school class trip, where it's more about the "community feeling", or you might even say drinking and fucking. By the way, you have to pay extra for the alcohol and it costs a lot. And if it is stolen, as it occasionally happens there, then you've literally thrown even more money in the sand (of Fraser Island). But since all the other backpackers do it, you have to do it too.

I didnt visit it though; instead, I rather enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of Hervey Bay with its many small cafés. It was also great that I could rent a bike for free in my hostel at any time. Unfortunately, I hardly ever ride a bike when travelling. In the small town there was also a great cycle track along the coast. I drove to a pier where a big pelican glanced at all the fishermen.

Seeing a wild kangaroo the first time

I continued my tour through the village. Until then I had not seen any kangaroos in my almost 2 months in Australia.The owner of the hostel had given me a tip where to find them. First I thought they were statues, because they stood there extremely calm and only turned their head towards me, but they were in fact kangaroos. The marsupials are very attentive and watched every step I took.  Then they hopped through the small suburb, towards the golf course.

When I came back the next day to take better pictures, there were many more kangaroos than before. They were all resting in the midday heat, looking for shade under a big tree. A resident just walked along the street and said that for him it was a normal scene. Sometimes he sees about 60 kangaroos there.  He gave me the tip to visit the local cemetery, because there should be even more kangaroos there.

Kangaroo meeting on the graveyard

And he was right! In fact, countless large kangaroos made themselves comfortable between all the graves and jumped happily over all the human remains. The animals don't care about that at all. Some of the kangaroos were bigger than me. One man advised me to keep a greater distance. The kangaroos were just in the mating season, this is when the males are particularly aggressive and sometimes they punch people if they feel that it is competition for their chosen females.

One kangaroo mom even carried a young one in her pouch.  Actually, this is not uncommon, because kangaroos bear a lot of babies. Often mothers have 3 babies in different stages of development, one in the womb, the other in the pouch and a third one that is already outside but sometimes slips back into the pouch. As they reproduce so rapidly, kangaroos are also open for culling and kangaroo meat is not uncommon.

For 5 days I stayed in the tranquil village of Hervey Bay. It also has a nice beach where more Australians than backpackers are staying. Because of the tides here you can even go for a mudflat walk from time to time. On the beach I saw many White ibis which are also called bin chicken because they use to explore trash bins with their long beak.