Regional Destinations

A mixed set of photos taken in the Hervey Bay district during the first few months of 2022. Locations include Tandora Station, Dundowran Beach and Torquay beach.

A great day trip with Lady Musgrave Experience. I spent most of the time snorkelling in the Lady Musgrave Island coral lagoon, in near perfect conditions. The trip departed at 07:00 from Burnett Heads marina (adjacent to the Port of Bundaberg), took around 2 1/4 hours to get out to the island lagoon, to tie up alongside the floating HQ. Returned to the mainland at 17:00.

Four days on Lady Elliot Island, June 7 - 10, 2021. One of the main objectives and hopes was to see manta rays, which was achieved. My underwater photography was constrained to snorkelling close to the island and by the buoyancy of the wet suit that kept me at the surface.

Four days on LEI, June 7 - 10. Coincided with a a couple of days of rain showers and wind but interspersed with some nice weather. This set of photos is of scenes above water. I have another album of underwater photos.

Brooweena is a small community around 50 kilometres to the west of Maryborough. They have a very good collection of old buildings, agricultural machinery and tools centred around the now defunct railway station. With a couple of Hervey Bay photographers I went out there on the annual Pioneers Day.

For my final day on Fraser Island (K'gari) I went on the Explorer Tours 4WD Beauty Spots Tour, which departed from the Kingfisher Bay Resort at 08:00 and returned around 16:30. Lunch was at the Eurong Village Resort. Fortunately we were not affected by the big bushfires burning on the island - the next day the state authorities closed the island to new arrivals because of the fires.

Three nights and days at the Kingfisher Bay Resort for the annual pre-Christmas get-together of my group of cycling friends. Some scenes around the resort, from some short hikes near the resort and from an early evening sunset cruise.

The Orchid House display changes daily with flowering botanical specimens from their extensive collection. New extensions to the Orchid House were opened late in 2019 but then the facility was closed for a few months during the COVID-19 pandemic. I have now been there to photography many of the flowering orchid plants that they had then on show.

Cania Gorge is a national park in the North Burnett Region of Queensland. Approximately 4-hours drive from Hervey Bay.

A cruise on the MV Amaroo from Urangan Boat Harbour. Cruised past Woody Island, over to Fraser Island then along the shore down in to the Great Sandy Strait. The weather turned bad for us so we turned back to find more sheltered waters. Before returning to Urangan we went across to River Heads to see the power of the combined outflow of waters from the Mary and Susan Rivers.

I joined a small group of people on a photography-focused long weekend on the island, with flights out there from Hervey Bay airport and back again. Not ideal conditions for underwater photography while snorkelling over the reefs.

Flying High Bird Park claims to be the largest free-flight aviary in Australia with over 2000 birds. Visitors can walk around inside the aviary to see the birds. It is located on the corner of Bruce Highway and Old Creek Road, Apple Tree Creek, about 50 km south of Bundaberg.

A weekend trip out to Biggenden with some of my Hervey Bay cycling group. The main objective was to climb the 703 metre Mount Walsh, which is an impressive backdrop to the town. We did that in the Saturday morning. The trail up the mountain is quite rugged and in parts steep and requiring negotiating crevices in the rock face. On Sunday we went out to look at the Deep Creek Railway Bridge (Chowey Bridge). I went also out to the Coalstoun Lakes National Park that comprises the youngest extinct volcanos in Australia (Mt. Le Brun). Rain overnight and morning showers on Monday prevented me from my next intended activity, which was go out to the Mount Woowoonga National Park to climb that mountain.

These images are from two photo shoots that I did with Hervey Bay master of photography John Abbott. For the first shoot we went out in to bush land to find flowering Xanthorrhoea plants. For the next shoot a couple of weeks later we went looking for harlequin beetles by one of the lagoons in Torquay, very near to my home. For both photo shoots I used a Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro lens.