So this weekend was another very touristy weekend. We had a public holiday for the Ekka last Wednesday (the Ekka is like a big country show thing and everyone in Queensland gets a public holiday to go visit), and then Stu and I took the Thursday and Friday off, so we had a lovely 5 days of sightseeing.
On Friday we hired a car and drove up to Hervey Bay, stopping off at a really really lovely little beachy town called Mooloolabah on the way (as we know, Australians are all about towns with loads of Os in the name). We had a nice spot of lunch, pottered around a bit, just generally enjoyed being by the sea and not in the big smoke. Then we went on up to Hervey Bay and found our B&B which was just scrumptious. From the road I feared that we had made a big mistake, but out the back it was all glass with a fabulous view of the lake and a myriad of wildlife, and a shitload of wee turtles living in the lake. Once again our hosts were just lovely. I just can't get over the fact that Australians don't really seem to be that into B&Bing as they really do have some fabulous ones.
Saturday was the main event - whale watching. Around this time of year the humpback whales are migrating down the east coast of Australia back to Antartica, and they hang out and have a bit of a rest just off the coast of Hervey Bay - it's the only place in the world where you're pretty much guaranteed to see them spy hopping, breaching and bobbing around and doing all the stuff they are famous for.
We went out on a wee catamaran, with only about 20 of us, which after seeing all the laden multi deck big yachty things we were pretty pleased about. We first came across a group of 3 'teenagers' who were doing a pretty good show for one of the other boats - at one point one of them stuck his head right out to the other boat to see what they were up to. I was quite crippled with jealousy at this point I must admit. The folk who ran the boat said that often they are attracted to interesting things in their environment, so they come up to the boat which is making the most noise. They are pretty much big show offs, so if they get big claps and cheers etc they'll do more.
We returned to those 3 again later in the day, and at this point we were the only boat with them, so we got very busy with the clapping and cheering. They were so so so close - and then someone noticed that we could only see 2 of them. We looked down and the sea under the boat was totally turquoise because just enderneath us was a belly up whale. He then spy hopped out of the water right in front of us - probably about as close to me as you are to the computer screen. I nearly wet my pants. They hung around for ages, and on about 3 or 4 separate occasions bobbed out to see what we were up to. It was AMAZING.
Below are some pics etc - they don't really do it justice as we were pretty busy just watching to be honest, and Stu couldn't follow my very simple instruction to put the camera onto record instead of pictures (I was very cross). A word of warning with regard to the videos though - you might just be able to make out the sounds of a very over-excited and annoying pom whooping and cheering for all her life's worth. Let the record show that we had been asked to do this - and by heck it paid off.
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| The great Hervey Bay Wildlifeat |
1 comment:
I have to say that I am impressed with your blog. I wish I had kept it all and then I could publish it as a book.
Do you also realise you were wearing less and thinner clothes in your winter than I am wearing in my summer?
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