Hervey Bay Gossip

Over the years there have been some unusual vessels anchored in Hervey Bay but I can’t ever remember seeing two large Army landing craft out there before.

These two were spotted anchored off Scarness around 7am this morning and they were still there several hours later.

The royal wedding is now passed into history but we keep on seeing images of THAT hat … in fact if you saw the royal wedding you would have seen lots of images of some unusual head pieces.

Not many people know but Hervey Bay has it’s very own milliner … Sheneek … and while none of her creations made it to the royal wedding they are beginning to appear all over Australia thanks to their online store.

The price tags that went with some of the hats you would have seen at the royal wedding might make you feel a little faint Sheneek’s prices are much more reasonable.

It seems that Hervey Bay is about to feel some more pain from the rising Aussie dollar (rises that some economists suggest will go on for quite some time thanks to what economists call the “carry trade”) as stories begin to surface that two more large backpacker hostels are set to close their doors soon.

If reports that we have heard are correct one is already in receivership and the other will close simply because large numbers of backpackers aren’t coming to Hervey Bay any more and the hostel is losing money.

With around 2,000 homes for sale, many new business premises remaining empty in Hervey Bay and the continuing closure of many small businesses on the Fraser Coast it’s not hard to be pessemistic about the future of this great town but perhaps it’s time for some optimism.

Hervey Bay has always had a two-stage economy … there’s the retirees and others moving in because of the lifestyle and then there’s the tourists. Both stages of the economy have been in the doldrums for quite some time but the Easter weekend … and April as a whole … saw an increase in tourism numbers.

We certainly aren’t back to the levels that experienced a few years ago but there are positive signs that the industry is recovering and that’s great news for Hervey Bay. Some local business groups have given up waiting for the Council to do anything and are now following the lead set by Holiday Hervey Bay and doing what they can to promote this town themselves.

So perhaps it’s time to stop being so negative about our future and start thinking that there may be a positive outcome for this town after all. At least one small business is already thinking that Hervey Bay is a great place to do business:

It looks as though Hervey Bay will have a new restaurant opening in the near future. Several people have tried running a cafe/restaurant next to Wetside but for various reasons have not succeeded. Perhaps this time we’ll see a positive result.