Maryborough, Queensland
This was our first visit to Maryborough. The visit was part of plans for a few day’s escape – 4 nights at Hervey Bay and then 2 in a farmstead near Childers, a town boasting some of the best heritage buildings in Queensland. While at Hervey Bay we planned to go to Maryborough on the Thursday for the market and to view this historic town. But our plans fell apart as the weather was terrible, many intense showers – we postponed the farm stay. We also had an unfortunate incident at Maryborough. We loved the many heritage buildings around the centre of town – they are amazing. For us the magnificent courthouse is the favourite. We also loved the murals.
Getting There
We visited Maryborough on 21 March 2024. It is a short 30km from Hervey Bay.
The drive from Kingscliff to Hervey Bay, and our setting up in the caravan park, and then exploring the town, is set out in our Hervey Bay post – click here.
Kerry’s snippets in fuchsia.
History
First Nations
Butchulla (also known as Batjala, Badtjala, Badjela, and Badjala) is the language of the Fraser Coast region, including K’gari. Butchulla language region includes the landscape within the current local government boundaries of the Fraser Coast Regional Council, particularly the towns of Maryborough and Hervey Bay extending south towards Double Island Point and north to Burrum Heads.
The indigenous Batjala people, including the Kabi Kabi, are the traditional residents of the Fraser Coast area. For more than 60,000 years, First Nations people lived in harmony with the seasons, the land and the sea, maintaining a balance between spiritual, social and family connections.
British settlement in the early 1800s had a devastating impact on the First Nations people. Much of their way of life was quickly destroyed and diseases were introduced. Their numbers were reduced from the thousands to around 300.
To read more about the stories and beliefs of the Butchulla people of this area click here.
The way of life of these First People can be read here.
Colonial History
Maryborough was first settled in 1847 by British settlers and is one of Queensland’s oldest cities. The history of colonial development from the earliest times can be read here.
Today Maryborough is known as the ‘Heritage City’ and although it isn’t as grand as Queensland’s two premier ‘Heritage Cities’ – Rockhampton and Charters Towers – it actually predates them both by decades. The city can boast a large number of beautiful historic buildings.
The modern Maryborough is a city driven by the surrounding sugar, grazing and timber industries and catering for the tourists who pass through on the journey north to Cairns. It has a population of around 15,000 (2021 census).
Homes
We past some lovely traditional homes as we drove through Maryborough. Some examples follow.
Around the Town
The Market
The market was not a big as we expected but still well worth a walk through. We had a quick look, promising ourselves that we would return closer to lunchtime.
We enjoyed the ukulele band, especially later when we sat down and devoured German sausages.
Flooding
Apart from the beauty and heritage of the town, there are many prevailing features that we noticed. A predominant issue is the flooding.
The Mary River is a big river and has suffered some of the most notable flood throughout its history. The actual flood levels are marked on a building next to the river and a series of information panels set out the flooding history. It is hard to imagine so much water to a depth of the top of the multi story building sweeping through the town.
The video for this post (see below) shows the full range of the floods, from bottom to top. The maximum flood was in 1893 with a water level of 12.27. The display panels are as follows.
Seeing the flood levels marked on the building really drove home how horrific floods of that size must be. The poor people who may have lost everything quite a few times.
Whilst reading the panels we saw the miniature train chug past. It operates on market days. You can see it (just) in the video for the post – see below.
Mary Poppins
On August 9, 1899, Helen Lyndon Goff was born at the Australian Joint Stock Bank at 331 Kent Street, now the Story Bank. She went on to tour Australia and New Zealand as a Shakespearean actor. When she moved to England she took the pen name PL Travers and famously created Mary Poppins’ magical world. In 1977, Travers was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. She lived to age 96, dying in London on April 23, 1996.
There are a number of reminders of that history. We loved what they had done to the pedestrian lights. They really stand out – whoever designed them had a brilliant imagination.
Heritage Buildings
There are so many heritage buildings around the centre of town that it is impossible to present them all in this post – they are amazing. For us the magnificent courthouse is the favourite and the first couple of photos captures that. But there are many others and we present a few here.
Murals
We love murals and all forms of street art, and Maryborough provides that aplenty. There seems to be street art everywhere.
The most striking is the Aviator in honour of Samuel William Hecker an aviator in the 1940s, a garage owner and Holden dealer. The artwork is amazing, presenting a film strip on the entire side of the side wall of Dimmeys. It’s a long mural and can be seen in the first 2 photos following, and in full in our video (see below). Other murals follow.
There is a mural trail and we had planned to see some more of this later.
The Incident.
I was taking a photo of a mural when I heard someone scream out: “You take another picture and you see what will happen.” I did not realise that the man was yelling at me. I took a photo of a mural but then I saw a man throw his gear onto the footpath yelling:”You have had it now, I told you not to take a photo. I’m going going to smash that camera into bits.” We turned and went back down the road which led to the market. Then I realised he was running after us screaming: “give me that camera, I’m going so smash it to bits.”
He caught up with us and came right up to my face still screaming about what he was going to do with the camera. I tried to tell him we were only taking picture of a mural, but that did not stop the screaming. In the end he calmed down as I showed him I was deleting some pictures (I was only pretending to do this). He then just turned and ran off leaving us shaking in our boots. A shop owner had come out and we said we were going to the police. She told us that the police knew him very well and that he had some serious mental issues but was not violent. This man terrified us both – it was awful… I honestly thought he was going to pull a knife out or something. We were both literally shaking.
Unfortunately this really affected us badly and after spending some time sitting in the park where the music was being played, we headed home. In hindsight we should have gone to the police.
To see photos of the post, click here
To see our video for the post, click here