Hervey Bay has a well-established community engagement programme that has been evolving over many years, with several cultural events held annually during the whale season. The annual Hervey Bay Whale Festival in July/August is a month-long celebration of the whales that visit these waters.
This festival includes the ‘Blessing of the K’gari Waters (Hervey Bay) Whale Watch Fleet’; the ‘Whale Parade and Concert’ which began in the late 1990s as a protest against Japanese commercial whaling, and continues today as a celebration of whales; the ‘Paddle Out for the Whales’; and, during the 2021 season, the new ‘Creating Waves’ event was inaugurated.
In addition to the annual festival, Hervey Bay pays homage to whales and their migration journey with art pieces and sculptures, including the life-size ‘Nala’ whale sculpture at the Fraser Coast Discovery Sphere; Nala's tail at the Wetside Water Education Park in Pialba; and the whale sculpture at entrance of Whale Bay Marina.
A Community Arts Project in 2019, aimed at raising awareness of cetaceans and plastic pollution, engaged community groups and schools to create an stunning bamboo art piece depicting a mother and calf humpback whale.
Photo: Fraser Coast Tourism & Events
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