After our time in Agnes Water we took another early greyhound bus to Hervey Bay. Hervey Bay is located approximately 4 hours South of Agnes Water and is where most people will embark on their Fraser Island trip. When booking Fraser Island we decided to depart from Noosa instead of Hervey Bay for a few reasons. 1) We wanted to base ourselves in  Noosa for a week or so to give ourselves some time to relax after moving every few days for weeks 2) The company ‘drop bear’ that we are using for Fraser Island are based their, so they will be able to store the majority of our luggage and 3) By leaving from Noosa we will need to travel North again, benefiting from around 3 hours of more information and stops than the other groups will get.

We arrived in Hervey Bay at around 11am, after a reasonably good greyhound bus trip. We stayed for one night at a hostel called the Aussie Woolshed. A woolshed is a building that is typically found on an Australian Ranch, which is used to shear sheep. The hostel had a lovely saloon style kitchen which matched its name and a relaxing TV area full of ranch style artifacts. The morning we left, we were able to have breakfast whilst watching Australia’s version of Good Morning Britain or BBC Breakfast, which we hadn’t been able to do for a month or so. AMAZING. It’s strange how something so simple can be so relaxing.

After arriving in our hostel, we quickly decided to go out for an explore. We had heard that Hervey Bay was mainly a base for Fraser Island therefore weren’t expecting much and decided to only stay for 24 hours. We made it to the beach, which was absolutely massive and went for a long walk. We stopped at a lovely little cafe called Bayorama for lunch. I had eggs benedict with bacon and a forbidden fruits frappe, Simon had a burger and onion rings (surprise surprise). This burger was amazing though. It had pineapple, egg, bacon, cheese and beetroot in it!

After a lovely lunch we kept on walking hoping to make it to Urangan Pier. Urangan Pier is one of the longest piers in Australia stretching out 868m. Originally, the pier was a whopping 1107m, but was shortened in 1985 when it was planned to be demolished. We had a lovely walk along the pier, watching some kite surfers and seeing the sand being blown across the sand bar below.

Nearby the pier we decided to have a mess around and taken some jumping shots. Have a look below.

 (Please ignore my face – Jeez)

After Urangan Pier we walked towards the Botanical Gardens. Usually, I love Botanical Gardens and think they are an excellent free activity. This wasn’t the case this time. There was a wedding happening on the main lawn on the Botanical Gardens (congratulations) which meant we were constantly worried about walking around and getting in the way. Also, the Botanical Garden just wasn’t that pretty! I hate to say it, but it definitely wasn’t worth our time. By this point we had already walked about 12km and we were both getting quite tired.

We headed back to our hostel (another 6km) with a quick stop at Woolies to get some food for dinner. All in all, I was very glad we only stayed for 24 hours in Hervey Bay. I can’t imagine spending more than this there as there wasn’t a lot to do. Hervey Bay is pretty good for whale watching trips, our whale watching trip was still to come in Mooloolaba, so we didn’t want to do another trip whilst here.

From Hervey Bay we headed to Noosa, which has been a town I have been looking forward to visiting for a LONG time. Spoiler – I was right to look forward to it.