Sunday, October 03, 2004
Whales and Stories...
Hey everyone!! back to blog again... went to Hervey Bay (pronounced Har-vey) on Wednesday.. supposed to go and catch the whale-watching boat... Let's take the story from the beginning...
We all met at 8am on wed morning at Toowong Woolworths to pass Regina the money and organise the cars and all that.. we only left at around 9am and we had about 4 hours to get there cos the boat leaves at 1.30pm. Poor Rachel only found out that her license was expired and had to go Qld Transport to get it renewed! So she left the city about 10am.. considering that Hervey Bay is about 300+km away from Brisbane, we estimated about a 4+ hours drive!! so we really rushed.. stopping at 2 pit-stops along the way... travelling at an average of 120km/h... but there was so many roadworks along Bruce Highway!!! and traffic really slowed to a crawl man!! we practically had to literally STOP for at least 10mins at every roadwork!! my car managed to reach there like 5mins late, but we walked to the wrong part of the jetty, and had to double back.. by that time only Regina's car was on the boat... AND THE BOAT LEFT!!!!!! Yes.. it left with only 5 people in our group out of 31 on board!!!!
So the company gave us the option of staying for a night and getting on the morning boat at 830am... sadly not all of us could stay behind cos they had other commitments the following day, so half of us stayed behind and half left... come all the way from Brisbane to see whales, you wouldn't want to drive back empty-handed!!! so they managed to get us located at YHA log cabins just a few minutes down the road for $20 each... its quite alright.. for the 4-bed dorms but the 2-bed dorms were practically prison cells!!! so small... and no aircon!! at least the 4-bed ones had aircon!! hahaha.. =P But those who stayed, we had heaps of fun man.. shopping around the Hervey Bay area, having dinner, all crashing in one of the rooms to talk rubbish and share life... got to know everyone a little better... =)
then came the next morning!!! everyone was excited to get on board, talk about finally!! hehehe.. but the trip was well-worth the wait!!! we saw quite a number of pods, though it took about 45mins in before we actually saw something... there was one whale who was constantly flipping and waving its fin, splashing it into the water... we also saw this super hyperactive whale calf that was constantly flipping, for over like 10mins... with the mother just beside it.. and saw another pod where the mother and calf were both flipping together... way cool man!!!! and one pod of 1 calf and mother and father came up really close to the boat... just a couple of metres away!! got some really cool shots.. =) will post these up when i've consolidated them.. =)
we all returned home really happy and really burnt too!! cos the afternoon sun while we were heading back to the boat was HOT!!! Milton lay on the deck while we were heading back to the bay and it was only about half an hour, but he got really burnt bad on the face and legs too!! I only got it on the face and arm cos I was wearing jeans.. so i'm really dark now.. and my face is starting to peel.. hahahah!! not the way to get a tan i assure you.. =)
that's my whale-watching experience.. man its really God's awesome creation man... you gotta see it to believe it.. such magnificent creatures... graceful, active, unknowingly intelligent and complex creatures... so cool... =)
Till I get the photos up, its back to work for me!! more deadlines to meet!! =P adios!!!
~~derek~~ at 10/03/2004 08:47:00 pm
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