Hervey Bay Gossip

Upgrades to Boat Harbour Drive in Hervey Bay between Hunter and McNally streets should be completed by Christmas, Premier Anna Bligh said yesterday.

Ms Bligh made the announcement about the Main Roads project today as part of her government’s Community Cabinet meeting in the area.

“The $11.5 million road upgrade to the one-kilometre section of Boat Harbour Drive will significantly improve peak-hour traffic flow and safety in Hervey Bay and will make sure the city can cater for future growth,” she said.

“The project will widen the road to four lanes, upgrade eight intersections and provide a new road surface suitable for the expected growth during the next 15 years.

“A new concrete pedestrian footpath will link existing council pathways between Banksia Park Drive and McNally Street to the new signalised pedestrian crossing at Banksia Park Drive so pedestrians can cross the road safely.

Two Hervey Bay ambulance officers have been honoured for more than 50 years of combined service with the Queensland Ambulance Service at the State Government’s Community Cabinet meeting today.

Premier Anna Bligh presented Glen Camplin with his 30-year Long Service Medal and colleague Mark Wildey with a 20-year Long Service Medal.

“This month, a Readers’ Digest survey found ambulance officers were the most trusted profession. Glen and Mark are proud and long-serving members of the ambulance profession in Queensland,” Ms Bligh said.

“Glen Camplin started with ambulance service in March 1978 at Brisbane before moving to the Darling Downs in 1989 serving at Pittsworth and Clifton before moving to Hervey Bay,” she said.

“Mark Wildey has served with the ambulance service May 1987. He served at the Hervey Bay station for most of his career with a stint as acting officer-in-charge at Mundubbera in 2002.”

Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts said Glen and Mark would be joined by an additional 250 ambulance officers in 2008-09.

“The Queensland Ambulance Service has just completed recruiting an extra 255 ambulance officers and an additional 250 officers are funded next financial year.”

“Eight additional ambulance officers were appointed to Maryborough-Hervey Bay region in 2007-08.”

Mr Roberts said the QAS was attracting qualified and experienced ambulance officers from across Australia and overseas as well as training officers recruited from within Queensland.

If you work in the tourist industry here in Hervey Bay then I’m sure you have your own ideas on which nationalities are the easiest to work with.

Now you can see how your list of “good” tourists compares with others because online travel company Expedia.com has published the results of their first Best Tourist Survey. At the top of the list are the Japanese while at the very bottom of the 31 nationalities mentioned in the survey are the French, Indians and Chinese.

When it comes to just who is the least polite nationality it seems that it’s hard to beat the Americans. You can read more about the survey here and Expedia’s press release is here

One of our favourite Hervey Bay cafes has reopened after being closed for 10 days while the kitchen areas was refurbished. The enclosed portion of the cafe now includes a pleasant bar area that’s sure to be an attraction during the warmer months.

Two other cafes here in Hervey Bay have also made some changes. If you like to sample new blends of coffee then you might want to try a cup of Belaroma at the Bayaroma Cafe or a cup of Gusto at Aquavue.

Hervey Bay is hardly the place you expect to hear stories of abduction and hidden explosive devices but that’s been in the news here this week.

On Saturday Lisa Keem disappeared from her home in Point Vernon and police now hold grave fears for her safety. A woman’s body found near Kempsey in New South Wales has yet to be positively identified but it may be connected to the disappearance of Ms Keem.

On Monday night the bomb squad from Brisbane removed an explosive device that had been found hidden in a wall of a house in Chancellor Drive. It’s believed that the device was hidden there by some previous tenants who vacated the house some time ago.

It was only discovered when the owners of the house started some renovation work. The device was destroyed by the bomb squad in some vacant land close to where it was found.

The forecast for the weekend ahead is looking good with plenty of sunshine and some very pleasant temperatures. It’s hard to believe that this is winter.

Here are a couple of shots taken along the beach here in Hervey Bay last weekend.

It was early Saturday morning but the beach was still the place to be.

Lunch time on a Sunday in winter - it doesn’t get much better than this.

Take a wander through the streets of Hervey Bay and you’ll see plenty of the usual medium and small businesses that you’ll find in any Australian town but if you scratch the surface and look a little deeper you’ll find a number of unusual and very innovative small businesses quietly working away developing new markets.

Hearty Foods is one of the latest to open their doors  and offer a unique service to both residents and visitors. Operating from 7 Banksia Park Drive in Scarness Hearty Foods offers fresh, ready made gourmet meals. They have an extensive menu and they’ll deliver right to your door at a price that won’t blow your budget.

Just follow the link to see what they have to offer.

If you’ve ever wondered what is done with all those plastic milk containers that you’re encouraged to recycle then here’s just one of the things that all the recycled plastic is used for.

Take a walk out along the pier at Torquay here in Hervey Bay and you’ll find that this bench has been placed there by the Fraser Coast Regional Council so that you can sit back and enjoy the scenery. A sign on the bench will tell you that it contains “the equivalent of 2100 2 litre plastick milk containers.

Sunrise after a heavy shower of rain certainly added sdome interesting hues to the photo.

More and more people in Hervey Bay are turning to the Internet to find the information that they require. Turning to the Yellow Pages when you want to find some local information is becoming a thing of the past and Google is where people are heading these days.

Clive and Kerry Scotney from the Beachside Pharmacy have been watching that trend grow and recently decided to take their business to where people were searching. But rather than just pushing their marketing message at people they decided that they wanted to bring important health information down to a local level and so they’ve become the first pharmacy in Hervey Bay to have their own website.

The website includes a growing database of important health information that can be accessed at any time of the day or night.

Toni Livesey from Total Website Management - the team that developed the site - thinks that it could be the first pharmacy website of its kind in Australia.

“We searched to see what other pharmacies were doing around Australia before we began work on this site and found some that were interested in pushing their marketing message but none that were interested in sharing important health information as Clive and Kerry do on their site.”

If you’re a tourism operator here in Hervey Bay … or rely on the tourism industry for part or all of your income … then the announcements regarding flight cutbacks coming from Qantas and Jetstar are enough to raise the stress levels a point or two.

But headlines in the online version of today’s Courier Mail like ”Virgin Blue Facing Oblivion” are just about guaranteed to send shivers down your spine. You can read the full story here. If the worse case scenario came about then there could be some very interesting times ahead for Hervey Bay.