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Hervey Bay
Pronounced "Harvey," Hervey Bay was a 1.5-hour flight on a prop-plane
from Brisbane. We took a puddle jumper from Coolangatta to Brisbane,
a choice we could have avoided knowing how close Brisbane was to Surfers
Paradise. While waiting for our connecting flight in Brisbane, I phoned
a tour company to book our whale watching cruise the next day. I had
been carrying a printout of their web page the entire trip. We were
easily booked and shortly on our way.
The Hervey Bay airport was as big as my house. The only guy working
there was the guy taking the bags off the plane. No rental car, no
information, no taxis. I was preparing to phone a taxi to take us round
the town so that we could find a place to stay when Kelly discovered a
brochure for
Lakeside Bed and Breakfast in the tourist kiosk. They
advertised pickup from the airport, so I called them instead.
Best move we made. Pauline and Max were wonderful people in a lovely
house that overlooked a small lake. Luckily they had availability.
Pauline picked us up at the airport and we spent the afternoon unpacking
and walking around town. We also booked the rest of our tours. I was
thinking of an overnight, 2-day tour of Fraser Island, but Kelly and
Pauline found it easy to convince me to book only 1 day and use the other
day for Lady Elliot Island.
Their house was a few bocks from the Esplanade, the road that goes along
the bay. It was a long walk to shops and restaurants, but we were up
to it after sitting in airplanes and terminals all day. We hung out a
little bit afterwards before embarking on yet another walk to an Italian
restaurant. While waiting for our dinner outside on the patio, dusk
brought a massive, steady influx of large bats to the bottlebrush trees
that lined the Esplanade. After dinner we walked to some of the trees
that were illuminated by streetlights and watched the activity. Wow,
they were larger than any bats we'd ever seen. And they were pretty
noisy in their quest for food.
We got up early the next morning, just like all the mornings thus far,
and watched Max feed the wildlife in the backyard. Charlie was a beautiful
crane who visited every morning for breakfast. Max also fed the turtles
in the lake and the duck families. He remarked that they get the neighbors
to feed their wildlife when they go out of town, and vice versa.
It was still way early so Kelly and I walked to the beach. We saw some
fishermen and a very photogenic Australian pelican hanging out waiting
for something exciting to happen. More lorikeets were bustling on the
bottlebrush trees, even hanging upside down to get a good taste. We
made it back in time for breakfast and a call from the whale watching
company to tell us they were canceling the day's trip. Pauline scrambled
to find another tour operator who was going out and found a morning
trip leaving in 5 minutes. Kelly and I rushed to pack our cameras and
Max kindly drove us to the marina where our arrival finally allowed the
Quick Cat boat to launch.
We were privately wondering if we were going to see any whales at all
since we were well aware that it was nearing the end of the whale-watching
season. In fact, it was Oct 16th and all the guidebooks said that the
whales stayed until the 20th.
We were not disappointed. All of the whales we saw were mothers and
their calves. None of them appeared to be afraid of our boat, and some
of them were curious enough to approach quite close. One baby humpback
whale, no more than 3 weeks old according to our guide, gave us a splashy
show with its fin and tail.
During the show Kelly's camera battery died almost ruining the rest of
her excursion. I checked mine and it was very low, so I took measures
to conserve power until we reached the mainland. The bay was choppy and
the boat was small and crowded, so it was difficult to get a good picture
with the boat rocking and the people getting in the way. I found the
upper deck to be a lot more stable and less crowded since most people
were more interested in being as close to the whales as possible.
The last picture I got was of a different boat who had great luck in
approaching a pair of whales (or vice versa?). The whales usually got
so close that I rarely needed to extend my 80-400mm zoom lens all the way.
Nonetheless I was surprised to learn from a fellow passenger that he
hardly used the 200mm lens he was borrowing for his trip. Yikes! What
was he taking pictures of on our tour, anyway? A few dolphins leaped in
the water on the way back, too quick for a picture with any lens.
We saw the splash of only a single breach, and that was quite a distance
away. Breaches can happen at any time during any kind of weather, so
it's just a matter of chance.
We certainly appreciated the Quick Cat company's willingness to help us
in our sudden predicament and would recommend them to anybody. And the
guides were quite knowledgeable about the whales. And we certainly would
avoid the MV Mikat in the future for their unreliability. But next time
we go, I think we'd choose a larger (and more stable) boat that stayed
out longer than just the morning.
When we returned to the marina we decided to forego the bus ride back to
the house and have lunch and do some more wandering. We immediately found
a camera shop to replace our dying or dead camera batteries. After lunch
we browsed the shops and headed toward the Esplanade on our way home.
The tide was out by now and we happened by the same fisherman who by now
had quite a following of pelican groupies! It took a while to walk home,
but we noticed a few more restaurants to try. We went back to a small
shop for dinner and then retired for the night.
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