The Whales are back - north and south

Great news today, the Whales (Humpback) are working their way north, and came into the Gold Coast to play for long periods of time yesterday.

I will never forget the wonderful experience we had in August last year 3 hours north of here in Hervey Bay - those huge wonderful creatures would just not leave the bow of our boat - so superb!!.

I guess this took me back to our great trip in 2008 over the Nullabor to Western Australia to hunt down their wildflowers, and the lazy whale - the Southern Right Whale. Travelled with the caravan, stopped across the Nullabor, where at least 60 Mum's were nursing their babes in the Great Australian Bight. The Mum's grow to about 18.5 metres and weigh up to 80 tonnes! They are called the "Lazy Whale" as they don't venture north past the south of Australia, N.Z. Argentina and South Africa.We also did a flight from the Nullabor Roadhouse in a tiny 4 seater rather ancient plane (Kiwi pilot) to get a good look from the sky as well. We continued to follow the Whales and of course the wildflowers as we wandered around southern Western Australia.

On the way back from Albany we decided to leave the van in Bremer Bay and 4WD into Fitzgerald River National Park - our goal was to reach Pt. Ann.

The road had piles of corrugations -

so we bumped and throttled along with a sudden skid to a quick halt on the gravel

for each wildflower the human GPS navigator spied the State's pretty bells wild spider orchids and the wild Iris in sandy soil.

We reach Pt. Ann

and there they were - those black marks in the sea the Great Right Whale cruising and showing her huge nose below

and unusually for a Right Whale (they are shy compared to the Humpback) - a quick tail whip!

and we then found a deserted beach except for more wonderful whales - those dark figures cruising along

I scrambled onto the beach

and they were playing so close to the shore

and then they surfed the waves - couldn't believe it!

Think it was Mum, teenager and new bub - cropped the photo to see.

National Geographic estimated in 2008 that the world population of Great Right Whales was around 10,000, a good improvement on previous population results.