Thar she blows

'Over on the left side'

We ran as fast as we dared across the boat and were rewarded with the tail end of a whale disappearing into the water.

'Right side now, around 3 o'clock'

back we hurtled just in time to see the humpback breaching, lifting his entire front end out of the water and smacking it down onto the ocean before diving beneath the waves once more. It wasn't the first whale that we had seen that morning and it certainly wasn't going to be the last.

I am in Hervey Bay which can only mean that I am doing one of two things- and I am going to Fraser Island tomorrow which must mean that I went whale watching today. And it was awesome! Completely and utterly.

Fantastic! We saw around 7 whales today and they played around the boat for ages- flipping their tails into the air, waving at us with their fins and general splashing around all whale-like. They came so close to the boat too- literally breaching around four feet from where we stood and swimming under the boat to get the people on the other side. They are gorgeous creatures too- the two that played around us the most weren't that big- that is to say that they were still around the size of the boat but not that big. They seemed to be enjoying themselves showing off all over the shop. And we were happy to watch them.

I also got talking to an English couple and the woman asked me where I was from. When I told her I was from Suffolk she looked at me... turns out that she is from Felixstowe too! In fact, her dad used to own BIllings Newsagent!

Small world.

But big enough to fit plenty of whales in it!