The changing seasons drive the migration of all whales. Humpbacks have a wide geographic range and are found in all the world’s oceans. During summer months, populations in the southern hemisphere spend their time in Antarctica feeding until late autumn, when they follow an annual migratory route to their winter breeding an dcalving grounds in the warmer tropical waters of the Pacific. They return south in spring. Southern Right whales are similar in that they feed in Antarctica in the summer and then migrate north to Australia to breed and give birth (especially in southern corners of Australia).

Migration, in terms of energy consumed is a huge commitment by whales, and humpbacks hold the record of having the longest migratory journeys of any mammal on Earth. For example, a humpback whale (off the coast of Colombia) was identified five months earlier feeding off the Antarctic Peninsula –at least 8000 km away. So why do whales migrate? There are several reasons why, but probably the strongest is the urge to breed. In simple terms, despite its enormous size at birth, a newborn calf is born without a protective blubber layer, so if it were born in the near freezing temperatures of the Antarctic waters, it would freeze to death very quickly.

Humpback whales are renowned for their spectacular breach behaviour, where they will leap out of the water, roll in the air with their huge fins outstretched like wings, and then crash noisily back into the water. They have a small dorsal fin located nearly two-thirds of the way down their back, which on the surface, distinguishes them from other whales by the way their backs steepoly arch as they dive. This is how they humpback got its name. They also have several other distinguishing features like large pectoral fins, and unique markings of black and white on the underside of the tail flukes. These markings are like the whales fingerprint, no two are the same. Humpback whales can grow up to 18 meters and weigh up to 50 tonnes.

The Southern Right is a slow swimmer and suffered extensively from whaling earlier last century. It was called the right whale because it was thought of as the ‘right’ whale to hunt. These days, they delight whale watchers with their peculiar looks and crowd attracting antics, like breaching and headstands, where they sometimes hitch a free ride from the wind by using their tail as a sail. They have an enormous head that is up to one quarter of its total body length with wide flippers and no dorsal fin. Above its snout is a peculiar bonnet with smaller light colored, rougn patches of skin known as callosities, which are also found on the head, chin and around the eyes and blowhole. We didn’t see any southern rights.

We departed Circular Quay in Sydney harbor on our cruise and headed out into the Tasman Sea for a three hour tour. The whales come in close to the coast to avoid the south flowing Eastern Australia Current (the same one from Finding Nemo). We initially followed two separate pods of whales that seemed to be in a hurry to reach the northern breeding grounds. After about two hours we found another, friskier pod further out to sea. This pod gave us a spectacular show including tail slaps, pectoral fin slaps, and breaching.

We sailed on quite a large boat, about a 75 footer, with about 60 other people. As we got underway everyone was quite excited to head out to sea to spot a few whales. The water was quite calm in the harbor, but once we passed the heads and exited the harbor the fun began. The swells out on the open ocean were only 2-3 meters, but that's all it took to make the action begin. We have never seen so many sick people in one place in all our life. Literally every other person on the boat got seasick and was vomiting into sea sickness bags. It was one of the most disgusting things we have ever seen. The kids were entranced and couldn't stop staring at all the sick people. We stayed out on the aft deck so we wouldn't be subjected to the constant noise and smell. Fortunately we didn't get sick though we did a little chilled. It is winter here after all, which means that it is 68 F and sunny every day.

Check out the photos.

Aussie Holiday Part 3

We departed the vast deserts of the Northern Territory and traveled to tropical north Queensland to see the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef. Imagine boarding an airplane where it is 23 C and 0% humidity, and deplane 3 hours later into 29 C and 100% humidity.

Australia’s tropical rainforests are the oldest continually surviving tropical rainforests on earth. Dating back more than 100 million years, they are internationally recognized as one of the most ecologically fascinating natural areas in the world. Occupying 900,000 hectares, Australia’s tropical rainforests account for approximately 0.1% of Australia’s total land mass. Despite their relatively small size, they are home to an amazing diversity of ife including 65% of Australia’s fern species, 30% of its orchid species, 60% of its butterfly species and 50% of its bird species.

To protect Australia’s tropical rainforests and ensure they are preserved for future generations, they were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1988. The World Heritage List recognizes and encourages the preservation of areas considered to be of cultural or natural value to humanity.

We went to Mossman Gorge and took a trek through the rainforest and swam in the Mossman River. We had ice cream at a plantation where the proprietor makes her own ice cream from exotic fruits that she grows in her orchard at the edge of the jungle. We visited places with exotic names like Port Douglas, Cape Tribulation, Mount Sorrow, and Cow Beach.

Daintree Ice Cream Company

Rainforest Pool

Cow Beach and Mossman Gorge

We also went out to the Great Barrier Reef. I won't go into all of the details about how the reef is the largest living organism on the earth, that it is the only living thing that can be seen from outer space, stretches thousands of miles from tip to tip, and so on and so on. The reef can be accessed by boat, and is about a 90 minute ride from shore. There are many operators who will take you out to the reef - some of these operators have boats that can take over 400 people out in one trip. Floating around, looking at fish with 400 people wasn't the type of trip for us, so we opted for a smaller operator that took about forty of us out to the Agincourt Ribbon Reef, and we saw three different spots. The reef was not at all what we expected - it was less colorful than we expected which can be attributed to the fact that most photographs people see of the reef have either been enhanced or were taken with a very bright flash and expensive camera. The water filters out the different colors of the visible spectrum, and the deeper you go, the more colors get filtered out. The reef at places breaks the surface and goes deeper than 30 meters. The reef is not one massive, continuous thing, but is made up of multiple chunks varying in size from several square meters to several square miles, much like individual buildings and suburbs of a very large city.

So we rode the boat for 90 minutes straight out into the middle of the ocean to see one of the seven wonders of the world. The boat pulls up near the edge of the reef and anchors quite a distance away in order to prevent damaging the reef. You jump off the back of the boat into about 40 meters of water and swim the 100 meters or so to the edge of the reef. You are quite aware that you are a great distance from shore and that the reef is home to many creatures, including many that can kill you in many horrible ways. You can't really swim over the reef as it breaks the surface, and trying to cross the reef would result in both damage to the coral and to your body, as the coral is very hard and sharp. So instead you swim along the edge of the reef, where you can see the amazing diversity. The kids were very brave and jumped right in despite all of their nervousness. We spent about an hour and a half at each site, and the kids lasted about 30 minutes at the first site, about 30 minutes at the second site, and about an hour at the third site where the crew treated us to a guided tour of the reef. Here are some pictures of things that we saw at the reef.

View of a reef from the boat

While in the Northern Territory we visited Watarrka National Park, home of Kings Canyon. Kings Canyon is about 300 kilometers from Uluru which is easily accomplished in a 2-hour drive. To a tourist the drive is spectacular because of the unique scenery, but I imagine could get boring quite quickly to a local. There is literally nothing between Uluru and Kings Canyon. You keep driving along, expecting to find a ranch, a town, or some indication of civilization but there is nothing.


The Lasseter Highway

When we arrived at the Kings Canyon Resort to check in, the receptionist warned me not to go down to the campground that night as the rangers were preparing to "take care" of the runaway dingo population. She also told me about sometourists, who the previous night, were walking along the footpath and saw a cute, little, brown snake, but it scurried away before they could pick it up. So they described it to the receptionist who did a quick google search, only to find out that they had nearly picked up a death adder. Of all the world's deadliest creatures, the top ten all live in Australia, with the death adder being in the top ten. A simple rule we follow is "don't touch anything"!




Watarrka National Park contains the western end of the George Gill Range. This scenic landscape of rugged ranges, rockholes and gorges acts as a refuge for many plants and animals, making the Park an important conservation area and major attraction of central Australia. Kings Canyon features ancient sandstone walls, sculptured by the elements, rising up 100m to a plateau of rocky domes.



At the beginning of our hike


Consistent with our way of vacationing, we decided to see Kings Canyon by taking an 8 kilometer hike up and around the rim. This included hiking up rugged hillsides, along the rim of the 200-meter deep gorge, through ancient rock formations, and a side trip to the Garden of Eden waterhole.





Later the afternoon at the end of our hike, we piled back into our Toyota Kluger and headed back to Uluru. Hundreds of years ago, early explorers imported camels to help with their journeys across the Australian outback. Many of these camels either escaped or were let go into the wilderness, and some still survive to this day. We had been told that on the day we arrived at Uluru that a few feral camels had gotten a bit too close to some tourists at the car park which made the tourists a bit uncomfortable, but no harm was done. Well wouldn't you know that on the way back to Uluru, while cruising the desert at 130 mph, we spotted a pair of feral camels hanging out near the road.







The Garden of Eden




Feral camels