The Right Whale Of Looking At It

Day: 322

Towns / Cities Visited: 218

Countries Visited: 31

Steps Taken Today: 13,733

Steps Taken Around the World: 5,094,553

I’d love to start this blog with a comment about how great a sleep we had, or even how dry and still the night had been. Alas, you guessed it, we’d spent yet another night tucked in our tent as it was assaulted by wind and rain from every direction. The downpour was so heavy at a few points that it had even managed to drown out my usual rain and thunderstorm soundtrack and wake me up with its hammering. The weather app seemed to be claiming we had experienced the last of it for a few days, but as I stepped out of the tent, I was sceptical to say the least. The Melbournian in me knew better, and so I adamantly donned my weatherproof jacket as we headed out to begin the day’s adventure.

You know it’s a sign of good things to come when one of your first discoveries for the day is that your partner’s watch has disappeared to some secret hiding place. With our start already being later than normal, though, we had to just add it to the list of things that would hopefully be found at some later time.

First stop, luckily, wasn’t too far away: Logan’s Beach Whale Nursery. Now, don’t let the name fool you, it’s not some man-made whale breeding centre; it is simply a viewing platform over the water. You see, this area of beach is renowned for being a breeding ground for Southern Right Whales in the winter time when they migrate up from the cold Antarctic waters. We didn’t have our hopes up for spotting any as we stepped out into the rain we weren’t supposed to be experiencing, especially given it was very early in the season for them, and our assumptions proved correct. Although we scanned the water for a long while, we didn’t see any evidence of the majestic beasts.

There were, however, a number of information boards around about the whales, and I enjoyed getting to know all about their lifecycles, breeding, and migratory habits. Their story in this area is actually quite a tragic one, though. As per usual…