Again, not my picture!

I'm in Rainbow Beach now - I arrived yesterday and am starting a group self-drive tour of Fraser Island tomorrow. I will meet my group in an hour for a briefing - yesterday I overhead the video they show and it was all about what to do if a dingo gets too close!

On Thursday I arrived in Hervey Bay and on Friday I spent the day whalewatching. Hervey Bay is the top whalewatching spot in Australia and it didn't disappoint :) Hervey Bay is the northern gateway to Fraser Island (Rainbow Beach is south of the island and where I am leaving from) so we sailed around the island and saw some whales resting on the surface, but we could just see their backs so it was difficult for me to understand that they were humpback whales. Then they started flapping their tails on the surface, and a couple of hours later the calves started breaching, which was amazing. The whales are huge and just looked like they were having so much fun throwing themselves around in the water. We saw five mums and a five calves, and just as we were about to leave six of them joined up into one big playful group. The whales came so close to the boat, and one mum and calve surfaced right next to the boat - it gave me a bit of a shock when I realised the mum was the entire length of the boat! Awesome.