Hervey Bay

We were going to Hervey Bay next week, but now we're not.  We just need to change our airline tickets for another time, but I do wish we were still going next week.

So anyway, here's my previous Hervey Bay story.....

A while back, some very close friends of ours moved from Sydney to Hervey Bay.  Damn.  I miss them a lot.  For those who don't know, it's 1200km away from Sydney (about 750 miles) in another state entirely. So obviously we have to go there.  Hervey Bay is in Queensland, right by Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world and World Heritage listed.  Although I'd been to Fraser Island before, I hadn't been to Hervey Bay.  We had breakfast at an outdoor cafe on the beach.

Morning, getting ready for action

My friends live at a place called Urangan, which has a famous pier that was used to transport sugar, timber and coal to cargo boats. The pier is over 850m long (about 930 yards).  Here it is from the water, it was low tide:

Urangan Pier, it's a long walk

Also at Urangan is the Vic Hislop Shark Show.  This place is all about sharks and how dangerous they are.  I don't think it has been updated in quite some time. We learned that sharks have very small brains with only one purpose. Eating. Anything. All the time. This sounds somewhat simplistic to me, but then I'd rather not find out first hand I guess.  Just about every shark fatality in Australia was documented (well, maybe not all of them, but a lot).  We saw a lot of photos of the sharks Vic has captured over the years.  His girlfriend liked to pose in their jaws wearing a bikini, smiling. Why?  Anyway, the weirdest exhibit was a big freezer thing with glass sides containing frozen dead sharks.  Below is the frozen great white in the foreground, a tiger shark in the background I think.

Great White and Tiger shark, frozen in time

It was all a bit fishy, and it smelled that way too.  I don't remember how long they'd been frozen but it was quite a number of years and you could tell because they were kind of, well, collapsing. And stinky.  Just for the benefit of fear, the Great White has been posed with open jaws. We ran screaming for the sunlight outside.

Crikey

Thank goodness for that.  Quick let's get to the pub.

The crew

Was that shark story an error of judgement?  Either way, we went to the pub and pondered the weirdness of the museum.

We took a whale watching cruise.  To get to where the whales hang out, you need to go to just about  the end of Fraser Island, which is nearly 120kms (75 miles) long.  The weather was a bit mixed up.

On the way

Fraser Island

Fraser Island with sunshine

Fraser Island

Bleak weather

Wilderness in the ocean

Beautiful

Once we got out there, we saw some cool humpbacks.  This one is a calf...

Humpback Calf

Humpback

About to dive

Pretty close to the boat

Wow

Whale Tail

We got back into the harbour eventually

Entrance to the harbour

The Marina

Fishing Boat

 We finally got home to Urangan

Long view of the pier

And saw the sunset from the terrace

Sunset

 Wish we'd be there next week, but it's not to be...

There's a dog in there

It really is quite pathetic, but Bruce is so spoiled I had to take these photos last night.  I stayed up till the wee hours watching the Olympics Women's Basketball - Australia v Canada, and USA vs China.  It was late.  The dog was asleep and before I finally went to bed around 3:00am, I covered him up with a doggie blanket before I turned off the heat.  Well, it was a cold night, and I want my doggie to be warm.  Crikey, he is so pampered, but he doesn't know it.  That's the big beefy brave Bruce dog under that ridiculous blanket. 

Tented up

 Life is so hard

Well I've been chasing balls and cats all day

Must be too warm now, time to stretch out

Phew, I need some air

Ok, well just leave me alone now, I'm sleeping

Crashed

Olympics, The Coopers Arms and the footy

Things have been a bit up in the air of late.  Well, there's been the Olympics - which for us means late nights or very early mornings to see stuff live, and I like to see it live.  Makes for a weird body clock though.   Still, it only comes around once every four years so might as well get into it!  The thing that gets me is that if one of these world class / Olympic level athletes don't win GOLD, it's like a failure! Gee, I remember winning red (2nd) and green (3rd) ribbons at my school swimming or athletics carnivals and thinking I was a star! By the way, first was a blue ribbon....

In the same vein, our Aussie cyclist Cadel Evans, who won the Tour de France last year, finished seventh this time around.  I was appalled that one of our commercial TV news channels called it his "Tour de Failure"..What?  I'd like to see those guys ride a bike up a mountain and all over the French countryside for days on end.

Mmmm.  Oh well, I'll continue to gripe daily to anyone that listens about this ridiculous obsession with Gold medals and lack of recognition for Silver and Bronze.  Oh yeah, sorry, I only won an Olympic Silver medal....

So, anyway, we had lunch at the Cooper's Arms hotel in Newtown.  Good winter fare.  I liked the quotes in the comic-like wine list (and no, we didn't drink the French champagne)...

I like the one from Will Rogers

This is the a la carte winter menu, but there's also burgers and stuff, and daily specials:

For me it was the prawns on chermoula pesto linguine, a wonderful flavour mix:

Delicious!

The other half went for the sausages and mash special.  This time they were Merguez sausages - I tried them and they were really great, so was the mash and gravy.

The mash was fab as well

And we had a bottle of Italian Pinot Grigio as well.  I like the label with the knife - it is called La Vendetta after all:

Cool label

We've also been to the footy lately.  That's football.  Which means many different things depending on what country you're in.  Over here it can be Rugby League, Rugby Union, soccer or AFL.  This time it was the AFL - Aussie Rules - a weird running, jumping, handball and kicking game that we play over here.  It is fast and furious and the guys are lean and mean and fast and well, very fast.  They officially play for 80 minutes in four 20 minute quarters, although the quarters can go over 30 minutes depending on what exactly happens.  It's very exciting. We were backing the Sydney Swans - they were playing St Kilda.  A big rivalry there between the teams, and the supporters.

Our friend Celia of the royal crown knitting fame brought along her Swan's bears.  The larger bear is 24 years old.  Celia knitted their gear.

The bears watching the warm up

The match was played at the SCG (Sydney Cricket Ground) and they've been demolishing one of the old stands.  It was a bit curious looking at that end of the field:

Weird

But the rest of the SCG looked just right

Match warm up

The bears were having a great time! Just like a teddy bear's picnic at the footy!

The 24 year old is having a beer

It really is a fun day out, even if you have to share it with 29,000 others

The local crowd

The bears were right into it

Original Swan's supporters

Celia was happy the Swans won, as we all were.  The bears are looking cheeky, a bit like winners!

Momma Bear with the kids

 It was a big day and everyone slept well.

Sleepy and warm