Anyway being in Brisbane/Gold Coast area you really can miss out on this: Whale Watching. I would say it was pretty much one of the highlights of my trip. David picked up a brochure while in Gold Coast about this company that runs whale watching cruises out of Gold Coast. There was another one that runs out of Radcliffe but with a bigger boat and lunch thrown in... however with a higher cost too!
After looking through the website I decided to go with the Whales In Paradise cruise company (http://www.whalesinparadise.com.au/), they had quite a good price and the run out from Nerang River which also would past the houses of the rich and famous along the Gold Coast Canal. As I'm going for the cruise alone I paid for the ride to and fro from Brisbane which cost a total of AUD125.... and once at Gold Coast we Boarded the boat which they called the "mahi-mahi". There were about 40 others on the boat and as we cruise along the Nerang River you can pretty much see hte lives of the rich and famous.... besides the huge mansions, boats, jetskis that's lined up you can actually find helicopters by it too... you know... sometimes ya need some groceries, and the traffic's pretty bad, ya need to tow ur kids along... juz hop on the chopper at the backdoor.... *grin*....
Whitehouse wannabe along the river
Riverfront properties
Gold Coast City
Can you spot the helicopter?... supposedly owned by a car SALESMAN...
Enough oogling at the properties... OFF to hunt for the whales!...
From the mouth of the Nerang River we headed out towards the open sea for about 1/2 an hour. The waters were crystal clear and I enjoyed the ride out... we came to a stop after spotting a pod of whales and soon you hear the "ooohhhhhhhs" and "ahhhhhhhssss" and people scrambling from the left to the right and from the front to the back of the boat to catch a better view... yea... myself included! hahaha.
2 humpback whales swimming along...
It's not all the time that the whales appear and sometimes we would have to sort of locate where they are and while waiting they would run some commentaries on the life of these humpback whales, latest research results and stuff like that. Oh yea... make sure that you do not have motion sickness! or take those pills before hitting the seas! A couple of tourist just turned green when the boat stopped and start rolling along with the waves... :P
The humpback whale showing off it's tail...
It was pretty difficult to catch good shots, especially when the whale does a massive breach... by the time you see it, put up your camera, auto focus it... it's long gone back in the waters... I manage to catch only one, the rest were pretty much splashes of water...
Breaching and falling on it's back... awesome stuff!
Spying on us!...
On the last pic, although it looks like a distance... but it was pretty near the boat actually... and what an experiecnce it was! I was just right at the right side of the boat looking down and suddenly a big white shadow just approach from the bottom push it's head above the water, and slowly sink down again... everyone was like..." woaaaaaaaaa"....
Anyway that was the last shot of the day before we head back to Gold Coast. It was pretty much a magnificent experience and I would actually recommend anyone who's there to just hop on a boat and have a whale of a time... :)
There's not much pretty pics over here but go on to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpback_whale and there's some clearer shots and cool information on the humpbacks... till the next round of updates!... G'day
2 comments:
Man!! You've seen whales??? I have never gone before...
then u should be eaten by them... :P
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