Hervey Bay

As we have already mentioned once or twice, the Australians are really nice people. Sometimes they are so nice that it makes rough Israelis like ourselves a bit uncomfortable. For example, if you walk around the caravan park and you meet another person, who you never met before, it is nearly obligatory that you will stop, say hello and ask them how are they doing today. Now imagine what happens when the caravan park is full with people. Fortunately for us, we arrived in most caravan parks very late (at 7pm) after most of the campers went to sleep. From the last few lines you might think we didn't enjoy that niceness, but the opposite is the truth. We met a lot of very interesting people with very interesting life stories.

Australians also love camping, especially the seniors. In fact, it looks like every citizen, when he reaches the age of retirement gets a caravan from the government, finds himself a caravan park in a nice location and stays there for the rest of his life.

In Hervey Bay we found the caravan park with the friendliest environment. Most of our senior neighbors were so lovely that one couple almost adopted Itay as a grandson. The staff was also very pleasant and very helpful.

There are two excellent reasons to visit Hervey Bay. The most popular one is that this is the departure point to the famous Fraser Island. To the second reason most of the people are not aware. Apparently, Hervey Bay is the best spot for watching whales. Every year the Humpback whales make all the way from Antartica to the Whitsundays area in order to mate and to breed. Since they pass all the east coast on their way, many tour operators along the coast offer whale watching tours, where seeing whales are garanteed, but the greatest amounts are in Hervey Bay, which is the whales resting area.

So on our first day there we booked a whale watching tour. A small bus picked us up and took us to the harbor, there together with few dozens of other excited tourists we boarded on our catamaran. This time all the three of us (me, Oren and Itay) carried cameras

The catamaran was going very fast and surprisingly smoothly. On the way we passed few very beautiful white sanded beaches, but unfortunately the sky was partially clouded, and when the sun was hiding everything was much less impressive. After about an hour of sailing we saw our first whale. Luckily for us, most of the whales show interest in boats like ours, so the big guy came closer in order to explore us. The tourists on the boat ran from one side to the other, trying to get a better picture of the large fellow.

Most of the time all we could see is the small hump on their back and the famous splash. Once in a while we could also see their beautiful tales as well. Later on we stumbled upon few more single whales, two males fighting over something (probably football) and a mother with her small (just few tons) baby.

Some of the whales were curious so they followed us, the others didn't show special interest so we followed them. And then at some point we met a pack of dolphins, and everything got crazy. At that point all the boat was surrounded by action. There were dolphins jumping in front of the boat, few swimming right next to it an whales from both sides.

Apparently, the whales love the dolphins (who wouldn't...) and they were really effected by the dolphin's playful mood. No matter where you stood you could get a great picture of one of them, from really close, so everyone were really busy doing just that. And then all of a sudden , out of no where, one of the whales jumped high out of the water with his whole body, and on hiss way back made a huge splash. The crowd was so amazed that no one got a picture of that (not even Oren). I think that my heart stopped beating at that moment. I was too excited to speak, not talking about taking pictures. It felt like this 40 ton creature gave us the most precious gift. It was exactly a month after we saw a sloth. I wonder what will we see on the first of October.

On the way back we saw a magnificent sunset. Or maybe it wasn't that great... everything looked magnificent from that moment on.

On our next post we'll tell you all about the second reason to go to Hervey Bay, Fraser Island.

Tip 1: Our lovely caravan park is called “Australiana”. It is located on the main road crossing Hervey Bay. Among other very good facilities there is a free Wifi for few hours everyday. They can also help you book tours.

Tip 2: Go see the whales! It's money well spent.