Hervey Bay
Placeholder page. More detailed content in preparation.
Lying around 275 kilometres north of Brisbane between the mainland and K'gari/Fraser Island with a northward 80-kilometre opening onto the Coral Sea, Hervey Bay's 4,000 square kilometres are partly protected from oceanic swells by the southern extension of the Great Barrier Reef. Parts of the bay lie within the Great Sandy Marine Park.
In the south of the bay, the Great Sandy Strait connects Hervey Bay to James Cook's Wide Bay. Cook logged and both features when the Endeavour passed them on 21 May 1770, and named Hervey's Bay after Admiral Augustus John Hervey, a Lord of the Admiralty from 1771 to 1775.
Matthew Flinders chartered the coast from Moreton Bay to Hervey Bay in the Norfolk in July and August 1799 and the Investigator in July 1802. Although he established that K'gari (Fraser Island) was not a peninsula, he failed to find a navigable channel through the Great Sandy Strait.
Lieutenant Joseph Dayman was the first to navigate the Great Sandy Strait on 10 November 1846, hoping to avoid the navigational hazards associated with Breaksea Spit at K'gari's northern end.
Sources:
Apple Maps (Location)
Encyclopedia Britannica: Hervey Bay https://www.britannica.com/place/Hervey-Bay-city-Queensland
Google Maps (Directions and distances: my measurements)
Queensland Place Names Database: https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/land/title/place-names/queensland-place-names-search (Requires search )
Wikipedia: Hervey Bay (Queensland) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hervey_Bay_(Queensland)
Image: 1879m Nautical chart Moreton Bay to Sandy Cape.
United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Admiralty_Chart_No_1068_Moreton_Bay_to_Sandy_Cape,_Published_1870.jpg
