Whale Watching

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Towards the end of September, we decided to go Whale Watching with Penny. We travelled about 4 hours up the coast to Hervey Bay - the jump off point for Fraser Island. We camped overnight (in a NEW tent that we purchased the week before) before setting off early the next morning on a boat trip to find some hump-back whales. The hump-back whales travel up from Antarctica in winter to give birth and mate in warmer waters, so between the end of August and the end of October they pass the east Australian coastline. Our boat trip took us about 45 minutes from the coast to a bay at the north of Fraser Island where all the whales like to hang out.

And there were certainly whales galore! Completely lost count of how many we saw that morning. There were relatively young whales that were really curious as to what the boat was. So they kept popping up just in front of the boat, and showing off for us by swimming alongside and jumping up and flapping their flippers and slapping the surface of the water. There was also a group of male whales (about 6 or 7) that were all fighting over a female whale, so they were showing off and trying to do the most amazing stunts to impress her! They were all racing around right in front of the boat - so close we got wet when they blew through their blow holes.

A really fantastic day out, and it left me in total awe of these huge, beautiful animals. It makes me so mad that people still hunt them illegally just for money. I just felt so privileged to see something so amazing. Apparently the whales don’t appear every day, so we were really lucky to see such a spectacular show.

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