Michael and I traveled to Australia as part of our 2007 career break. The following is an excerpt from our travel blog.

It was going to be a hot one in Sydney, with temperatures expected to be in the mid 30’sC (90’sF).  But it was still relatively comfortable as we made our way to the airport to catch our flight to Hervey Bay.  It was just an hour and 15 minute flight up the coast, but as we began our descent, we could see it would be much different weather from Sydney as we passed through thick clouds.

[singlepic=138,200,,,left]Hervey Bay is actually made up of five villages and stretches 16km along the coast, about 6 hours north of Brisbane.  During the months of August through October, Hervey Bay is well visited by tourists interested in seeing the humpback whales that migrate through the bay.  They’ll spend months here rearing their calves until they are fit to swim south to the Antarctic.  We arrived at the tale end of their migration but still hoped to catch them during our afternoon.

The males had already left the bay, and they are the ones that tend to give more of a show to spectators.  Still, we made our way out on the Whalesong.  The clouds from the morning still lingered and even turned into on and off rain.  But once out at sea, we were able to chase the sun as well.[singlepic=140,200,,,right]

Hervey Bey also offers easy access to Fraser Island, as it sits right off the coast.  We made our way up the western side of the island in search of some whales.  We mainly encountered moms feeding their calves or just resting on this lazy Sunday.  But we couldn’t be too disappointed as it was still an amazing experience.  And the real purpose for our visit to the area lay just off board- Fraser Island.  Tomorrow we would be heading their for a two-day adventure.

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