Beaches, bats and baleen - cruising down the Sunshine Coast

After three days aboard our Solway Lass, we found we were all feeling a little woozy on land. It was okay when we were outside able to see the horizon, but when we were inside the windowless bathroom stalls of our campsites it felt as if the ground was swaying beneath us. Fortunately, except for two more long car rides we were outside from morning to night in the days to follow.

We hit the road to cover as many miles south as possible our first post sailing day, then stopped in Yeppoon. In the morning we headed back out to sea, a white knuckle ride over rough water with dark clouds above the mainland that receded as we reached our destination, Great Keppel Island, ringed with miles of golden sand.

We passed an idyllic few hours playing soccer with our flippers as goalposts, 

then using them to snorkel 

over coral reefs with large schools of fish and a sea turtle at a secluded bay reached by a short hike over wooded hills.

The hours passed too quickly and before we knew it our boat had arrived, 

and we returned to our family friendly campground in Yeppoon where the kids careened down the giant waterslide, celebrated Kyra's birthday dinner with chili and rice and watched the critically acclaimed "Garfield and Princess Kitty" at the outdoor amphitheatre.

Our next stop was Hervey Bay, which we had rushed through on our way north. It was pouring rain when we arrived, so while we waited for it to stop long enough to put up our tent we cooked dinner in the communal kitchen and chatted with a woman who had sold her house and was permanently living on the road with her family, stopping occasionally to earn money and then heading out again. Their motto, painted on the side of their rugged four wheel drive truck, was "travelling at the speed of life". Many Australians seems to do fairly serious outback touring, and their fully loaded Mad Max style trucks and campers made our little Toyota Corolla with its trunk full of backpacks seem pretty tame (or lame?)

Hervey Bay is known for being a breeding ground for humpback whales migrating from Antarctica, and October is one of the best months to see them frolicking and feeding in the bay, so we decided to spring for a day long whale watching cruise on the Freedom III. Profiteroles and homemade scones with cream and jam for breakfast, a buffet lunch and an afternoon tropical fruit spread were delicious but a minor accompaniment to the wonder of seeing humpbacks dive and breach all around us, almost close enough to touch.

We watched one mother and her calf frolicking for an hour, 

slapping their tales on the water and delighting the kids with waves of their flukes.

Our captain was determined to show us some whale acrobatics, so he radioed around to find a pod that was exhibiting more exuberant behaviour, and took us to a group that was breaching every couple of minutes. Leah, a fellow passenger, used her superior photography skills to capture this one in mid-leap - it was like something out of National Geographic.

Returning to shore we all felt exhilarated and unbelievably fortunate to have seen the whales. So grateful to know that humpbacks, still endangered, are increasing in population now that at least one threat, that of whaling, has been removed - though the road to full recovery is by no means clear due to entanglement in nets, overfishing, and most alarmingly habitat destruction through marine pollution. While whale watching is not completely benign, and unregulated can have negative impacts, Hervey Bay seems to strictly control both the number and the speed of vessels in order to protect the whales. It seems far preferable to have a long term whale watching industry depending on healthy whale populations for its livelihood - they need all the allies they can get.

Returning to shore we stopped for groceries, and went back to our campsite. Realizing that twilight was fast approaching, we zoomed over in our car to the other end of the coastal Esplanade and ran down the beach to the bat rookery, a dense cluster of trees - we recognized it first by the unearthly stench caused by such a large concentration of the flying mammals - from which soon emerged wave after wave of bats -  hard to capture on film but filling the skies with tens of thousands - one estimate put the number of bats in Hervey Bay at 2,000,000.

They formed a seemingly endless vortex and then headed over the sea and into the sunset.

The next day we headed to Rainbow Beach for the surfing lessons we had promised Jacob. Paul went along for his own lesson while Tom, Kyra and I walked the shore next to sky high dunes

 which varied in colour and hue from beige to deep red.

We took care to skirt the highly poisonous blue bottles littering the sand.

Though not usually fatal, their tentacles can still inflict serious injury even after the jellyfish is dead.

Enjoying a post-beach picnic we ran into Matthew and Leah, who we had met on the whale watching boat the day before in Hervey Bay. They were from Noosa, further down the coast, and when they heard we would be heading that way they offered us their backyard to camp in, perhaps not realizing that we quickly accept such offers! Before Noosa though we camped in Tin Can Bay. It was Thanksgiving but we had no desire to eat the brush turkeys, seen throughout the national parks, and instead Paul carved a Thanksgiving local pineapple by the light of the moon (and the fixture of the communal outdoor kitchen). We went around the table and listed what we were each grateful for, and Tom finished by saying "I'm grateful we haven't been bitten by a poisonous snake. But we still could be!"

Early the next morning we went to the harbour, hoping to meet the bay's resident humpbacked dolphins, one or more of whom come to shore most mornings to see the volunteers and get a free breakfast. That morning we were fortunate that Mystique, his mate and her calf, and another member of the pod named Patches all swam in.

Humpback dolphins in this area have had a symbiotic relationship with humans for hundreds of years, dating back to the time when they would help local aborigines herd fish into waiting nets, then be rewarded with a portion of the harvest. In recent times the dolphin visits date to the 1950's, when the patriarch of this particular group beached himself in the bay due to injuries. When he was healed he returned regularly to visit and enjoy a free meal. He later brought a mate and her calf, Mystique, who is now full grown and has been coming to the bay for 24 years. Visitors are allowed to come at 7 am and feed the dolphins at 8 am. After that time the dolphins return to sea and it is illegal to enter the water with them or feed them from land or boat, a regulation that is strictly enforced with fines of thousands of dollars against offenders.

All the human participants (there were about 30 of us) were required to have a sterilising hand wash, turn off mobile ringers and camera flashes, before being allowed to enter the water and stand as the dolphins swam by. At 8 o'clock we were required to leave the water and then return one at a time to feed one fish each.

 - in total it ends up being the equivalent of a morning tea and a biscuit for the dolphins, so it's less of a feeding than it is a social visit with the bonus of a few free fish. The dolphins clearly had a relationship with the volunteers, and we were told that when Mystique was badly injured by a bull shark attack it came into the bay to be cared for by them until he was recovered enough to return to the sea. Apparently bull sharks frequented the bay, a mildly disconcerting thought as we stood thigh deep in the slightly murky water. Back safe on land, having said good-bye as the dolphins swam away, we laughed at the pelicans, who stood casually near the fish station, walking away with a who me? look when the volunteers shoeed them off, then wandering back again as soon as the coast was clear.

We thought we had seen all the wildlife we could imagine, but there was more in store when we got to Noosa. We traversed various scenic viewpoints

during a four hour hike through the Noosa Headlands national park, from whose vantage we saw more breaching humpback whales, dozens of dolphins that surfed the waves and literally leaped and did flips out of the water, and soaring sea eagles. In the tropical rainforest we saw countless colourful birds, two koalas high in the branches, almost unbearably adorable, 

giant goanna lizards, and brush turkeys that noisily constructed nests in the forest floor.

The next day we walked up to the top of the Tewantin scenic overlook for a view of the region,

then headed to Sunshine Beach with the boogie boards our hosts had lent us.

When we'd had enough of the wind and sun we went to another part of Noosa Headlands Park and walked the Tanglewood Track 

where we saw glossy black cockatoos and spotted more whales breaching off Alexandria Beach as we walked the sandy shores.

We had dinner with Matthew and Leah and their kids Chelsey, Sophie and Jack.

The delicious fare was jacket potatoes, cooked in the fire pit in the backyard, 

served with all the trimmings as well as coleslaw and a meat sauce, both of which Leah whipped up in her Thermomix, a household appliance common in Australia that basically does everything except clean your house (though if you asked nicely it probably would). One more night camping under the stars in their backyard, and after giving us lattes, hugs and a blessing Leah and Matthew said their good-byes. 

We had just a short time left on the east coast before our evening flight to Darwin, and made the most of it with a trip into Brisbane, a city that merits more exploration than the few hours we gave it.

We visited a market to stock up for lunch and the long wait ahead of us at the airport, and wandered through the botanical gardens and the tropical rainforest path,

 then walked from the Central Business District straight to the riverside boardwalk, destroyed in a cyclone a few years ago and subsequently rebuilt.

We took the City Cat ferry back 

to the South Bank river park where we went for a swim in the beautiful artificial lagoon, with the Brisbane skyline at our back and the river in front. 

 I'm running out of superlatives to describe the urban waterfronts we have visited. More inspiration to take back home to Toronto - who wants to crowdfund and build a freshwater lagoon along Harbourfront? I'm in!