Guide to Bowen Queensland Australia

Bowen sits on Edgecumbe Bay at the northern end of the Whitsundays, about an hour’s drive north of Airlie Beach. It is a working town of around 10,000 people with eight beaches, coral you can snorkel straight off the sand, and a slower, cheaper style of holiday than the island resorts to the south.

Known For

• Horseshoe Bay and the snorkelling beaches of Cape Edgecumbe
• The Big Mango and the Bowen mango
• Murals, wartime history and wide views from Flagstaff Hill

The town centre faces the harbour and Front Beach, with wide streets laid out in the 1860s, while the best beaches are a few minutes north around the granite headlands of Cape Edgecumbe. Bowen is one of the sunniest towns on the Queensland coast and is drier than the rest of the Whitsundays, which is why the country around it grows winter tomatoes, capsicums and mangoes for the southern markets.

Bowen is also the first town in North Queensland, founded in 1861, and it wears its history lightly: painted murals on the shop walls, a seaplane memorial on the foreshore and an old jetty that locals fish from at dusk. Read more about Bowen and its place on the Great Barrier Reef.

Things To Do in Bowen

Horseshoe Bay

The best-known beach in Bowen is a small curve of sand between granite boulders, with fringing coral a short swim from the shore. Bring a mask and snorkel at mid to high tide, when the water over the reef is deepest. A walking track climbs from the bay to Rotary Lookout and continues over the headland to Murray Bay and Rose Bay.

The other beaches

Rose Bay and Murray Bay are quiet coves with coral close in and views to Gloucester Island. Grays Bay has calm water, a boat ramp and a playground. Queens Beach is the long one, about five kilometres of sand with a shaded foreshore park, and Kings Beach runs south from the cape towards town. Front Beach, beside the main street, has a free water park for children.

Flagstaff Hill

Drive or walk to the top of Flagstaff Hill for a full-circle view over the harbour, Edgecumbe Bay, the beaches and the northern Whitsunday islands. It is the place to be at sunrise or sunset.

The Big Mango

The ten-metre Big Mango stands beside the Bowen Visitor Information Centre on the Bruce Highway, a few kilometres south of town. It honours the Kensington Pride, the variety better known as the Bowen mango, which was first grown here. The centre sells mango sorbet all year; the fresh fruit is in season from about November to January.

Murals and museum

More than two dozen murals in the town centre show scenes from local history, and a walk around them takes about an hour. The Bowen Historical Society Museum covers the port, the shipwrecks and the early settlers. On the foreshore, the Catalina memorial recalls the flying boats that were based in Bowen during the Second World War.

Fishing and boating

The jetty, the harbour rock walls and the creeks north of town are popular for fishing, and charter boats and hire dinghies work out of the harbour. Stinger suits are advised for swimming and snorkelling from about October to May.

Where To Stay

Most visitors stay near the beaches rather than in the town centre. Horseshoe Bay has a small resort of cabins and caravan sites a few steps from the sand, and Rose Bay has self-contained apartments on the beachfront.

Queens Beach has the largest choice, with holiday apartments, motels and several caravan parks along the foreshore. In town there are motels along the highway and pub rooms near the harbour, which suit an overnight stop on the drive north or south. Bowen is busiest in the winter months, when travellers from the southern states arrive with their caravans, so book ahead from June to August.

Eat & Drink

Bowen is a place for simple seafood. Bird’s Fish Bar at the harbour sells fish and prawns straight off the local trawlers, cooked or fresh, and is the town’s best-known lunch stop. Jochheims Pies in the main street has been baking for generations and named a pie after Hugh Jackman when he was a regular during filming in 2007.

The Grand View Hotel near the harbour is the main pub for a meal and a drink on the verandah, and the cafe at Horseshoe Bay is a favourite for breakfast after a swim. In season, look for roadside stalls selling mangoes, tomatoes and other local produce on the roads into town.

History

The country around Edgecumbe Bay belongs to the Juru people. Captain Henry Sinclair entered the harbour in 1859 and named it Port Denison, and the town of Bowen was founded there in 1861, named after Queensland’s first governor, Sir George Bowen. It was the first settlement in North Queensland and for a time was expected to become the capital of the north, before Townsville overtook it.

Bowen became a port for cattle, coal from Collinsville and salt from the local evaporation pans. In 2007 the foreshore was rebuilt as wartime Darwin for Baz Luhrmann’s film Australia, and Cyclone Debbie caused heavy damage across the district in March 2017.

Getting to Bowen

Bowen is just off the Bruce Highway, about 200 kilometres south of Townsville and 190 kilometres north of Mackay. Airlie Beach is about 80 kilometres by road. The nearest airport is Whitsunday Coast Airport near Proserpine, about 45 minutes south, with flights from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Queensland Rail’s Spirit of Queensland stops at Bowen station, and long-distance coaches call at the town.