|
Edgecumbe Bay and Gloucester Island
 Horseshoe Bay
Hideaway Bay
One of many murals depicting an aspect of the town's history
Cape Upstart
Gloucester Island
Heart Reef, whitsunday Islands
|
The quintessential graceful Queensland port town, Bowen is located on the north-east coast of Australia, at exactly twenty degrees south of the equator. In fact, the twentieth parallel crosses the main street. Bowen is a major Queensland centre for the growing of mangoes.
One of many murals depicting an aspect of the town's history
Where is it?: Queensland: Capricorn Coast. Bowen is halfway between Townsville and Mackay, and 1,130 kilometres by road from Brisbane.
Things to see and do:
A feature of the town are the many murals painted on the side walls of buildings in the town centre. These murals depict the history of Bowen and the surrounding region.
Being a peninsula, with ocean on three sides, Bowen has eight beaches surrounding the town, namely Kings Beach, Queens Beach, Horseshoe Bay, Murrays Bay, Greys Bay, Rose Bay, and the Front Beach. There is also the clothing-optional Coral Bay. Kings Beach offers views of nearby Gloucester Island.
Bowen is a centre for aquatic recreational activities, including sailing, fishing and cruising Edgecumbe Bay, Middle Island, Cape Glouceseter and Gloucester Island.
Lookouts: Mt Nutt Lookout, Mt Nutt Road, has a viewing tower at the top of a reservoir providing visitors with views over the coastline, Bowen's farming areas and the coal loading port at Abbott Point. Flagstaff Hill lookout, Margaret Reynolds Drive, has picnic tables, bins, a cafe and some panoramic views over Bowen, Edgecumbe Bay and the Coral Sea. Rotary Lookout, Horseshoe Bay Road, overlook the beach at Horseshoe Bay.
Events:
- Easter: Easter Sunday Family Funday
- July: Bowen Cultural Festival
- October: Bowen Cultural and seafood Festival
Surrounding area:
The Whitsuday Islands are siuated less than an hours drive to the south east of Bowen.
Empty beaches, rainforest and reefs are just some of the attractions of the scenic Gloucester Islands to the east of Bowen. Camp sites close to the coast are popular with locals, while smaller more remote islands offer a secluded experience. Gloucester Island National Park is home to the largest colony of endangered Proserpine rock wallabies. More >>
Flanked by sandy beaches, Cape Upstart (45km north west) is an imposing granite headland covered in a range of vegetation types from vine thicket to heath. Significant areas of beach scrub and coastal dunes are also protected in Cape Upstart National Park. More >>
About Bowen
A town of over 7,500, Bowen sits on a square peninsula, with ocean to the north, east, and south. On the western side, where the peninsula connects with the mainland, the Don River's alluvial plain provides fertile soil that supports a prosperous farming industry. Bowen enjoys a diversified and prosperous economy based on agriculture, fishing, tourism, and mining. The unusually dry climate for a tropical location, plus the fertile alluvial soil, makes Bowen the ideal place to grow a wide variety of small crops, including mangoes, tomatoes, rockmelons, and capsicums (i.e., green peppers). Outside the alluvial plain, much of the Bowen Shire is used for beef cattle.
Just north of Bowen is the Abbot Point coal loading port. The mining of Coal from the Bowen Basin is a growing operation. Abbott Point is Australia's most northerly coal shipping port, with its modern deepwater port complex and extensive facilities both onshore and offshore. It plays a vital role in the States $8 billion coal export industry. Forecasts suggest that over the next 5 to 10 years the volume of coal exported from the Abbot Point Coal terminal will triple to approximately 50 million tonnes.
Bowen featured prominently in the 2008 feature film, Australia, directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. In the film, Bowen represented Darwin during the war years.
Climate: Bowen is in the dry tropics. This means it has all the warm sunny weather of a tropical climate, but it is much dryer than one would expect for tropical beaches overlooking the Great Barrier Reef. At Bowen's latitude, the Trade Winds provide a pleasant breeze. The warmest month is January, with an average maximum temperature of 31 degrees Celsius. The coolest month is July, with an average maximum temperature of 25 degrees Celsius and an average overnight minimum of 14 degrees Celsius.
History: Lieut. James Cook named Cape Gloucester on his voyage of exploration up the Australian coast in 1770. This "cape" turned out to be an island, and Gloucester Island dominates the view from Bowen's eastern beaches. Behind the island is a bay that forms an excellent port, which the town came to be built around. This bay was eventually discovered in 1859 by Captain Henry Daniel Sinclair, in response to a reward offered by the colony of New South Wales for finding a port north of Rockhampton. Sinclair named Port Denison after the colonial governor of New South Wales.
Two years later, Sinclair led one group of settlers by sea, and George Elphinstone Dalrymple led another party overland from Rockhampton. They met on 11 April 1861 at Port Denison and founded the town of Bowen on the next day, 12 April 1861. By this time, the separate colony of Queensland had been established, and the town was named after Queensland's first colonial governor, Sir George Ferguson Bowen.
Two years later in 1863, the new settlers discovered a sailor, James Morril, who had been shipwrecked 17 years previously just to the north of Bowen. Morril made his home in the new town, and his grave is still to be seen in the Bowen cemetery.
The coral reefs around Bowen have several shipwrecks, including the SS Gothenburg which sank in 1875 with a loss of more than 100 lives. Numerous relics of Bowen's history, from the Aboriginal past onwards, are on display at the Bowen Historical Society's museum. During World War 2 Bowen hosted an air force base, flying PBY Catalina flying boats to search for enemy ships and submarines.
View Larger Map
|
