Had A Whale Of A Time In Hervey Bay

Hervey Bay 25th July - 8th August

Hervey Bay was a surprise for all the right reasons. We loved every minute we spent here. This was

to be our furthest point north for this year due to waiting for the birth of our newest grandchild in Perth. We will be flying from Brisbane to Perth to meet him / her mid September so no point in travelling further north only to travel back south to Brisbane in a few weeks.

We stayed at Scarness caravan park right on the waterfront (our preferred spot is always right on the beach). Our site was back a bit from the beachfront as we found out later you have to almost wait for someone to die before a beachfront site becomes available. The beachfront sites a beautiful. No trees or bushes interrupting the magnificent views & amazing sunsets every night.

We learnt from some of the others staying at the park that all parks along the Queensland coast right up to Pt Douglass are fully booked until October each year due to the winter warriors spending 3 to 4 months at the same park every year. Gary and I then spent the next few days researching and booking our trip up the north coast next year.

They have a lovely old fashioned cinema where the latest movies were only $9ea so went to see a

movie (Jason Bourne). On the way there we could hear deafening squawking coming from above. We wound down our windows & looked up to find literally thousands of bats flying around & hanging from the trees above. We don't see bats at home so they were a novelty for us to see in broad daylight in such massive numbers.



The absolute highlight of Hervey Bay & possibly this whole trip so far has to be the whale watching cruise we did. We didn't even know Hervey Bay was known for

whale watching till we saw all the signs throughout the town. We set off around 9am on a fairly big catamaran hoping to see a glimpse of a whale or 2 on this 4 hour cruise along the coast off Fraser Island. We had prime position on the front on the top deck next to a lovely Tasmanian couple. We didn't wait long before the familiar sight of a whale spurt could be seen in the far distance. Everyone (including us) became all excited with cameras primed waiting for the next glimpse. The Tasmanians told us not to get excited just yet as they were on this exact same cruise the day before & saw very many whales very close up.
Sure enough, a few minutes later our boat found 2 humpback whales frolicking in front of us. Our guide told us they were 'teenagers' & therefore very playful & interested in anything different they see in the water. They played right alongside our boat for about half an hour, going from side to side, back to front, swimming under or around the boat as if to let everyone have an equal view of them. It was just spectacular. A pod of whales is generally 2 or 3 but we saw up to 5 playing along in one group which we were told is quite unusual.
We had a lovely cold chicken & salad lunch with plenty of food for every one. All together we

estimated we saw approx 40-50 whales which was just fantastic. The last hour of the trip I put my camera away & just enjoyed watching them through my own eyes rather than through a phone.
It was a truly amazing experience we will treasure for a long time to come.

As I said at the beginning we loved Hervey Bay & have already booked to stay 4 weeks next year. We wanted to stay 6 weeks but they couldn't fit us in.