Whale Watching in Sydney
July 27th 2008 06:35
Whale's eye...and body
In the stairwell at Cockle Bay Wharf in Sydney there is a whale hanging from the ceiling. It is unusual and slightly unsettling. For a start it seems to be too small for a proper whale. It's only about the length of a Camry. And - weirder - it is transluscent, as if its mother bred with a jelly fish. Jelly Whale seems no sillier name than Sperm or Humpback.
The more I thought about it, the less I could figure whether it was unusually small for a whale. I'd never actually seen a live one. I couldn't in all conscience deride a Jelly Whale if it were perfectly normal. That's not what deriding something for being different is all about.
So I went and saw some. They weren't far away at all. 8 kilometres east of Cockle Bay is a whole bunch of beached whales. And another 8 Kilometres past Bondi is the great migration route of the Antarctic whales.
In the winter months, much like their mammal cousins New Zealanders, Humpback and Southern Right whales leave the cold south and make their way north to tropical Queensland to rest and breed.
Whale tail
They are patient beasts. They travel up the east coast of Australia at a leisurely 3 or 4 knots for 8000 kilometres back and forth. I don't know how whales sleep. If anyone could tell me I would appreciate it. We tracked two pods on a True Blue tour. The first pod was surrounded by five or six other boats. Our captain picked up a spout - that tell tale fountain of water expressed when they surface - about another 2 kilometres south of the main bunch near the heads of Botany Bay and for an incredible half an hour three colossal mammals (Humpbacks much larger than a Camry) dived and surfaced by the boat in a very relaxed mood.
There is a lot of over priced food at Darling Harbour and Cockle Bay. There's also some high quality cuisine definitely worth the money. I mean no disrespect to the latter, but if you are at Darling Harbour and you're hungry and you have $70 burning a hole in your pocket turn seaward onto one of the whale watching wharfs and get yourself a burger when you return.
Captain Cook www.captaincook.com.au (appx $60 per person)
True Blue www.sydneywhalewatching.com (appx $70 per person)
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