Hervey Bay Gossip

Hervey Bay City Council is set to commence work on adding sand to the beaches at Torquay and Urangan in February. Approximately 8000 cubic metres of sand will be added to each beach from excavations at Dayman Spit.

As on previous occasions when this type of work has been carried out the sand will be transported along the beach. The work will take approximately two weeks.

I wonder how they plan on getting the trucks around the new outfall near Aquavue on Torquay Beach - even at low tide there isn’t a great deal of room between the end of the outfall and the edge of the water.

As we all know Hervey Bay is home to a number of dolphin pods but you don’t always see them from the shore.

Last night the people along Shelley Beach were treated to the spectacle of a pod swimming up and down close to the shore while a very young dolphin entertained the watchers by leaping high out of the water on several occasions.

Come on all you couch potatoes - come out and enjoy this beautiful place that we live in - why stay glued to the gloom and doom of the television when you could be enjoying a much better and happier show on the beach.

Up to three bull sharks have been blamed for the fatal attack on a swimmer off Stradbroke Island on Saturday.

That is not good news for Hervey Bay and Maryborough for bull sharks are known to frequent the waters around Hervey Bay and especially down around the Urangan Pier.

Bull sharks are also regularly spotted in the Mary River around Maryborough and further upstream.

Although this is the holiday season things can still be rather busy around your home. The house can be full of visitors demanding your care and attention, the days are hot and humid and some how you still have to find time for your normal routine.

It’s at times like this that you really do need to find time for yourself and if the house is full of guests then why not find half an hour or so and get down to the beach to unwind. You’ll find the perfect place to do that at Aquavue on the beachfront at Torquay.

They’ve got great coffee and the best view in Hervey Bay.

And if you really want to work out your frustrations they can have you skimming the waves of Hervey Bay with their jet ski hire

If you’re out on the waters around Hervey Bay these holidays do be aware of the boating regulations - especially those that govern the speed at which you can travel when you’re close to the beach and around swimmers.

This hoon was on his second high speed swing through very shallow waters near the Aquavue Cafe at Torquay yesterday.

Yep it’s another beautiful day here in Hervey Bay - the sun’s shining and the birds are singing - and it’s the weekend too.

So let’s get out and enjoy it folks because right now the beach is looking good and the fish are biting.

It’s also very small, quite natural and makes a very big mess.

It’s Hincksia sordida a naturally occurring alga inhabits the sea and is in bloom at this time of year. Individually it is quite small but unfortunately it comes in very large groups and at the moment several tonnes of it is sitting just over the horizon of Noosa.

Last year when it was washed ashore on Main beach it cleared the beach and all the restaurants along the beach right at the peak of the holiday season. One Noosa resort suggested that its takings for January were down by $100,000 because of the problem and other businesses reported losses of up to 30 percent.

While you may think that our little friend Hincksia sordida is someone else’s problem it isn’t. Over the last couple of weeks there have been reports of the algae appearing on the beaches on the seaward side of Fraser Island as well as down at Rainbow Beach.

For Noosa the problem will get worse if there are strong breezes from the north before the bloom breaks up.

Fortunately Hervey Bay managed to escape the wild weather that struck other parts of south-east Queensland although things did not look so promising yesterday morning.

Even last night the weather radar showed a number of storm cells moving in but somehow they all managed to slip away to the south. The light show that was displayed in the sky was well worth watching if you had a sheltered spot.

If you thought yesterday was a bit warm and sticky then spare a thought for the people in the United Kingdom. In Cormwall a major winter storm caused over 1000 motorists to become stranded and the Army had to be called in to rescue them

Here the worst we had to experience yesterday was a little fog

Thanks to the civic mindedness and the generosity of the Hervey Bay Boat Club our local police now have two new vehicles to add to their fleet.

The Boat Club recently handed over two new 360cc Kawasaki quad bikes for the police to use in beach patrols and in the Esplanade precinct as well as along the Links Mobility Corridor.

Sunstate Motorcycles are also to be commended for providing maintenance sponsorship for the new bikes.