It's about a 5 hr drive--through Brisbane, pine plantations, sugar cane fields,
new and used homes--to the tourist town of Hervey Bay City and disembarking point for Fraser Island - the largest sand island in the world and a World Heritage Site -- but that is another destination for a future tripSo what, you may ask, is in Hervey Bay? I am so glad you asked! It is the beginning of the southward migration of Megaptera novaeangliae, the Southern Humpback Whale. We had booked with Peter and his Blue Dolphin catamaran sailboat for a day cruising Platypus Bay off of Fraser Island, in search of 'friendlies' - young adult whales who are not breeding yet, but follow the 6000 m migration from the Antarctic to the Great Barrier Reef. The "mums" are up north in the Reef giving birth, so the young males lead the way in heading south towards Antarctica for the summer (remember, we're opposite seasons down here!). The whales hang out in Hervey Bay for a rest along the way, and --watch the people on the tour boats!
Captain Peter Lynch picked us up first thing in the morning at the Emeraldine - the eco-friendly motel where we stayed, and drove us to the wharf. The rest of the passengers were retrieved along the way - a couple from Barcelona, another from Ireland, folks from Melbourne and Sydney and Cairns and a few from Brisbane. Melanie - the concierge, greeted us with tea and we set off out of the harbor. Melanie is from Holland - she came here 5 years ago on vacation and never left! She speaks 5 languages (including English). On the motor-assisted sail out Peter gave us an extensive run down on the Humpback - he has been working with whales and dolphins for 20 years and taking trips in Hervey for 8 - he is a veritable fount of whale knowledge and lore.The Blue Dolphin is a 10.5 m sailboat weighing 4 tons (including people). We were told that a young adult whale can be 10-12 m and up to 25 tonnes (adults can be 14 m and 40 tonnes!). So when we approach the first "pod" of 2 whales it was with some degree of question as to what they would do with such a dinky boat!
But these guys were *curious*! - there is no other way to describe it. They would swim between boats (maximum 3 boats w/in 300 yds of whales. No closer than 100 yds. But if they swim toward you , a boat can remain in place) and "spyhop" (stand on their tails and raise their heads above water - they did this literally inches from the boat!
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They would also roll on their backs, swim under the boat - one spyhopped in the gap between the 2 hulls of the catamaran!
They would slap their fins on the water and swim over and around each other. Then back to the other nearby boat to repeat the behaviors. It was really quite astounding! These 2 finally swam off and we headed in towards the beach where another pod of "sticky" whales had been reported. The whale watching boats - (there are 11 permits) seemed to keep each other informed about the comings and goings of the pods. Here it was 3 whales performing the same sorts of antics - rolling, spyhopping, big 'blows" (exhales) that created rainbows above them. They stuck with us for 30 min before swimming off to... whatever whales do when they are not watching tourists!
Lunch was an fantastic affair right down to the Australian wine. We spotted very large turtles basking on the surface (probably Greenbacks) and had great views of the (largely) unspoiled parts of Fraser Island.
We discussed the sad history of man's relationship with whales - Peter reported that Russian scientists recently revealed the full extent of Russian whale "harvests" in the 18-1900's which raised the estimated decimation of Humpbacks - it is now estimated that the population went from 45 -50,000 whales to a low of 500. One of the other guests pretty much put it right out front.....
All in all, a pretty glorious day - we had a reflective afternoon tea, Peter explained the sand bank movement and history of Fraser Island. We plotted and planned how to get back up here to see the mums and calves in October.
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