Hervey Bay
Postcode: 4655
Hervey Bay is a rapidly growing resort city in southeastern Queensland, Australia. The ‘Bay’ benefits from a fantastic sub-tropical climate with no real extremes (average 30 degrees Celsius in summer and 23 degrees in winter) and has been voted in the top three of ‘best climates’ in the world. Subsequently this has certainly added to the growth appeal of the city. City population is approximately 52,000 (2006 estimates), with the city covering an area of 2,356 square kilometres, under the administrative control of the Hervey Bay City Council.
Hervey Bay is represented in the Queensland State Parliament by Andrew McNamara. The current Mayor of Hervey Bay is Ted Sorensen.
The bay was originally named “Hervey’s Bay” by Captain Cook (in the Admiralty copy of his journal) when he passed there on 21 May 1770, after naval officer The Hon. Augustus Hervey.
The city is situated on the shores of the South Pacific Ocean, and is only a short distance from Fraser Island, the world’s largest sand island and Lady Elliot Island, a pristine resort island on the Great Barrier Reef. The local economy thrives on tourists, for whom whale watching, Fraser Island and Lady Elliot Island are the major drawcards. Recent figures (2004) suggest that more than 600,000 people visit the city each year.