Menu
Known as the whale watching capital of Australia, Hervey Bay is home to just over 50,000 Australians, and is the most populous area in the Fraser Coast region.
Southern Cross are proud to have been installing windmills Hervey Bay can depend on since 1903.
People of Hervey Bay can feel confident that they have the backing of over 100 years of experience, from Australia’s oldest windmill manufacturer.
Hervey Bay families know how important reliable water harvesting systems are in the Australian outback, and this is why people all across the nation continue to look to a Southern Cross windmill.
Southern Cross Windmills are available in a range of both windwheel and windmill tower sizes, and our experts can help you find the windmill that best suits your requirements.
Our ‘FA’ Series towers come between 20′ and 60′, and the ‘IZ’ windwheels are available in sizes starting at 6′ all the way up to a 14′ wheel. The dimensions of your windmill will be determined by your surrounding landscape.
The Southern Cross “FA” Series Windmill Towers are available in the following heights:
The minimum recommended tower height for each windwheel size, is as follows:
Wind power is the original renewable energy source. It has been utilised to power our boats, mill our grain and pump our water for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
Windmills have been a part of rural living in Australia for well over a century, and is a great renewable energy source, in addition to being an Australian icon. For well over a hundred years, rural Australians in towns like Hervey Bay have relied on windmills as a renewable energy source, and the humble windmill has become an Australian icon.
Anywhere there is access to water, you can build a windmill, no matter if it’s a river, dam, bore or well, the windmill pump is among the greenest and most reliable water harvesting solutions.
Australia is a famously arid and tough country, and water has always been difficult to come by for rural Australians – so much so that 85% of Australia’s population lives within 50km of the coast.
When George Washington Griffiths brought the Southern Cross Windmill to rural Australians, it was a game changer, allowing pastoralists and graziers to explore further inland for stock grazing and pastoral runs.
While most rural properties use their windmills to pump water from bores or wells, windmills can also pump water from rivers and creeks, or into and out of dams.
As technology consistently advances, there have been a number of challengers to the modest Windmill pump, the most recent of which being solar pumps.
While solar pumps look promising, they certainly aren’t as tried and tested in the long run as the conventional windmill, with many properties across Australia featuring windmills that have been pumping water for more than 50 years.
Windmill accidents account for less than 1% of all accidents on rural properties, so while solar pumps are often regarded as a safer option, they contain a dangerous current, and also pose risk of injury or death.
With a 30+ year design life, and over a hundred years’s experience in supplying windmills to Australian families, Southern Cross Windmills are a name you can rely on.
Since 1903, over 250 000 iconic Southern Cross Windmills have been built. All windmills produced by Southern Cross are hot dip galvanised, and supported by over 100 years of winning windmill design.
All Southern Cross Windmills include a 3-year warranty.
At Southern Cross we pride ourselves in the design and integrity of our Windmills. We specialise in the design, manufacture, installation and servicing of top-notch windmills, across Australia and around the globe.
We design and engineer all of our windmills in house, and they are designed to be hardy enough to survive in even the harshest of Australian climates.
Genuine Southern Cross parts for all current range windmills are available, in addition to other parts for A, J, R & Z Pattern Windmills”, “J” Series Windmill Pumps, Troughs, Check Valves, Pump Heads and Pump Jacks may still be available upon request.
From the very first Southern Cross windmill rolling off the Toowoomba Foundry line in 1903, nobody has experience like we do of handling Hervey Bay and Australia’s unique water harvesting needs.
The first windmills built by the Griffiths family in the Toowoomba Foundry were improved versions of blueprints designed by an American Engineer, Daniel Halladay, and these were produced more than a century ago, in 1876.
These first windmills allowed rural Australians to move into more arid areas of the country for grazing sheep and cattle, and inland towns and pastoral runs began to emerge across the nation.
Unlike another Aussie classic, the lamington, Southern Cross Windmills origins in Toowoomba are not up for debate, however, both have certainly gone on to become recognisable Australian icons.
Southern Cross is an Australian owned brand, and we still operate out of Withcott to this day, servicing Australians all across the country, including graziers, irrigators and rural families.
Now comfortably located at the Gilgandra Museum and Historical Society, this 7.3 m Southern Cross windwheel was built and delivered to Mendooran in 1924.
While now used purely for display purposes, the Windmill pumped tirelessly and vigilantly for 73 years before it was donated to the Gilgandra Museum and Historical Society by the Payne family in Mendooran.
Closing in on its 100th birthday, at the most recent service, all it required was some oil so as to keep it in operating condition. This Mendooran windmill is a testament to the longevity and reliability of a Southern Cross Windmill.
Hervey Bay was named the First Whale Heritage Site in the world in 2019 by by the World Cetacean Alliance, due to its commitment to and practices of sustainable whale and dolphin watching.
The main thing that will come to mind to do in Hervey Bay is go whale or dolphin watching, of course, but why not also head to the botanic gardens, or nip across to Fraser Island for a day trip.
