Hervey Bay - Whale Watching

This morning we got up at 7am and after a quick breakfast ( I didn’t eat much because I was worried about getting sea sick), we headed off to the marina to go on our whale watching cruise on the Quick Cat 2 catamaran. I took a Stemetil tablet which the doctor prescribed for motion sickness, hoping that for the first time I would be able to enjoy a boat ride. After parking in the wrong car park and asking for directions at the shop we found near the ferry terminal, we made it to where the Quick Cat was moored. We had to wait a little while until all the people on the list were accounted for or dismissed as not coming and then we headed off. We went slowly at first to get out of the harbour and then to wait for the spotter boat, the “Awesome” to catch up and go past since it is faster and will let our captain know where the whales are sighted. It took a long time to get out to where the whales are usually spotted and then finally we slowed down. Along the way we could see Fraser Island in the distance; it’s bigger than I realized and is definitely the sandy island as they describe it. When we slowed, a pod of dolphins came along and rode the bow wave for a while. It was so cool to see them weaving in and out under the bow. I have taken photos as best I could but you just had to be there! Later, some more came and joined us and when we were in shallower water near Fraser Island we saw a pod of what are known as inshore dolphins. They are a smaller species, a hump backed dolphin known as Sousa chinensis. By the way, we didn’t see any whales – they saw them the day before and all previous days in the season so far apparently but we lucked out! They gave us an open ticket to come back any time, any year to try again. There were some people using their ticket that they got in 2005.
After the cruise which took over 3 hours we stopped off at one of the cafes on the Marina and had some lunch and I rang my brother and wished him a happy birthday too. Following this, we got some shopping and petrol and headed back to our holiday unit. We organized some accommodation for Rockhampton, our next stop and Mackay, the one after that. Next, we took a walk down to the beach and along it for a fair way. There were a few people fishing and many walking like us. Along the shore lots of coral pieces had been washed up along with some shells and some odd pointy pieces of wood which we guessed might be pieces of tree root, maybe mangroves? The sand is very fine but darker than the sand on our Victorian beaches. From the constructions we saw, it is good to mould into shapes. It was a good long walk that kept moving so I had quite a sweat up by the time we got back to the unit. By this time it was time to go out again for dinner. Asian tonight we thought. What a life!!