Hervey Bay - Still

1st September

After a bit of exploring the beach front, we all took the kids out to the end of an incredibly long jetty yesterday for a little walk (868 metres - one way). This of course lit all the burning desires that Dylan had to go fishing, so we set off later that afternoon with rods and bait in hand, ready to catch our dinner. It was at this point that I got reminded to check tide times, because we happened to be going out there at low tide where the first 600 metres is on dry land. They have anything up to 5 metres change in tides here so it is quite an amazing transformation. After a frustrating hour of working out what fish were around and what they were biting on and stopping the kids driving me stir crazy by winding their line in the moment the other was about to be put in the water, I finally found a way of getting the kids hooked up. The fish were all of about 6 - 10cm long, but that couldn't wipe their smiles away. turned out to be a real fun afternoon, with the kids being the only ones on the jetty to catch anything, and they got a good dozen each
Earlier in the day we had booked a Whale watching trip for Monday, so the next morning we got up at 6:30am and headed down to the marina. We had expected a few tail slaps and air puffs as the whales passed by, but we couldn't be more wrong. We stopped a couple of hundred metres away from a pod, and within 5 minutes they swam over to investigate and spent the next 3 hours circling the boat, waving, smiling and frolicking for us, all within touching distance. To top it off, the weather was perfect - sunny and about 26 degrees, there was zero wind and the water was glassy and dead calm. It certainly turned out to be an experience worth doing.... the kids were absolutely awe struck at these creatures almost as big as the boat coming up out of the water to say hello.