Tin Can Bay and Hervey Bay

While in Maroochydore, some people told us that we should really stop at Tin Can Bay and feed the dolphins before we continue on our way up to Hervey Bay. So, we drove up the night before and spent a lovely night in Tin Can Bay where we walked along the water and saw a beautiful sunset.

Very early the next morning, we got up to feed the dolphins. Unfortunately, it had rained a lot in the prior days so the water was a bit murky and there was so much fresh water around that we weren’t sure if the dolphins were even going to show up. But, two of them did and we all got a chance to feed them. (For those of you who are curious, these are humpback dolphins – smaller than bottlenose.)

After Tin Can Bay we were going to stay at what sounded on paper like a fun and social caravan park outside of Maryborough. But, after we took one look at the place, we decided to definitely NOT stay there. So, we drove on to Hervey Bay and stayed at a park near the Urangan Pier.

Hervey Bay

The Urangan Pier was pretty cool. I used this as my morning walk as it was just outside of our caravan park and the pier is almost a kilometre long. There were tons of fisherman lining the pier each day and one morning we saw a dolphin playing around at the end of the pier eating the fishermen’s bait while managing not to get hooked! Pelicans and falcons were also frequent visitors to the pier.

Hervey Bay also had a nice beach that reminded me of the Caribbean since there are no waves – the ocean is blocked by Fraser Island. The water temperature is also still beautiful (22-24 C or 71-75 F) even though we’re coming into winter.

We ended up spending 3 weeks in Hervey Bay. It was supposed to be only 2 weeks, but we had to wait for a new sensor for our air conditioner and the part took a while longer than expected to arrive.

Free Camp at Calliope River

After leaving Hervey Bay, we decided to make a longer drive up and reach Yeppoon to visit some friends living in the area. We broke the trip up into two and stayed a night at a lovely free campground on Calliope River. It was beautiful but very busy!

During our drive up to Yeppoon, we saw tons of sugar, mango and pineapple fields, so we just had to stop when we saw a little pineapple stand. And oh my, it was worth it! YUM!!