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Published: September 26th 2007
Humpback whale
Huge humpback spy-holing for a better look at usWe caught the Greyhound to Rockhampton, our overnight stop on route to Hervey Bay. The weather seemed a little more gloomly and our journey took us through rainstorms and sunny spells. We arrived at Rockie after dark and got picked up by the YHA, where we were spending the night. The wasn't a lot to do in this cattle country town so we walked to the nearby KFC which seemed full of diners with no shoes on. Barefeet must be an Australian thing! We had another early start the following day to get the 6am bus to Hervey Bay.
Hervey Bay We arrived on the Greyhound bus at Hervey Bay, where we were picked up by the Koala courtesy bus driven by a classic Australian bloke. He was a real character, his conversation littered with expletives in the hilarious style unique to Aussies (Deb you would have loved him!). Backpackers all seem to descend on Hervey Bay on pilgrimage to Fraser Island, which is basically a huge sand island where you can do a self-drive safari in a 4x4. We were bombarded with promotions trying to entice to the island but we both agreed it must
Up close with the Humpback!
You can't get any closer without getting wet!!! be a hellish experience stuck driving around a big sandpit in a 4x4 with a bunch of strangers, getting bitten to death by vicious sandflies while you camp on the beach. We opted for a half day whale watching tour instead.
Whale Watching We booked a morning cruise and climbed aboard the Tasman Sea whale watching boat, complete with underwater viewing windows (that were so tiny you couldn't really see anything!). We stayed on deck in the fresh air and laughed when an annoying chubby kid who scoffed loads of the free carrot cake and cookies, puked his guts up over the side. Unfortunately, his parents were even more annoying during the trip!
We encountered 4 pods of humpback whales throughout the morning, seeing 10 different whales in total, including mothers and calves and big daddies with huge tails. The whales came so close to the boat, it was amazing! You could almost touch them as the poked their heads up through the water, spy-holing to get a good look at us. Apparently if you wave your arms over the edge of the boat, the shadows created in the water encourages the curious whales to pop their heads
Humpback
getting closer and closer!! up for a look. One of the annoying women kept windmilling her hands crazily and shouting "look at you, you hunk of spunk!". She shouted this so much, Rach was so appalled that she blurted out "you can't say that to a whale, it's just wrong!". Maybe spunk means something in Australian! We managed to escape the crazy lady and her kids and enjoyed the whales swimming around and under the boat. It was very tempting to stroke their barnacled heads and dappled white bellies. We peered over the side of the bow, smiling at the playful bottlenose dolphins playing in the slipstream of our boat. In the end we had to say goodbye to the whales, but the annoying woman kept shouting, "there are more whales over there!" to which the skipper replied on the mic "no, that's the pod of whales we just visited, we are going to leave them alone now!". Back at the harbour, we disembarked from the boat and said hello to a huge pelican floating happily by the jetty. Rach saw one of the pelican's mates chilling out on the shoreline of the beach later that afternoon.
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simon
non-member comment
Nice Whales
Looks amazing. Did you let them know that Mr. Spock had saved thier mates in the future. I'm reliably informed that 'spunk' is ozzie slang for mate or good looking hunky bloke'. As Roge and Pge say ' I scorn your ignorance!!!!'