Anfire's Blog

Whale Watching Spectacular – Brisbane, October 2009

Hello, my name is Susan, I am 31 years old and I was born in Queensland, Australia.  I moved to London 6 years ago where early on I met my boyfriend who is from Austria and just this year we re-located to Vienna.

Back in late October 2009 my boyfriend and I travelled to Australia to attend my friend’s wedding.  With some spare time on our hands, I wanted to show him more attractions of my beautiful country so we decided to organise a day out watching whales with my family.  My family live in Brisbane, Queensland so we booked the tour with the Brisbane Whale Watching company (www.brisbanewhalewatching.com.au) which leaves from the Redcliffe Peninsula, just 30 minutes drive from the Brisbane’s CBD (see map).  Although it was late in the season for whale watching (between the months of June and October) we were still guaranteed to have sightings.

Leaving the Redcliffe Peninsula it took us a little while until we were further out from the shore and we were starting to get anxious that the whales weren't going to make an appearance.  The whales have oils in their skin which leave this interesting, round circle on the surface of the water and helps to locate where they most likely are.  The tour operators had tracked some whales nearby and we headed in their direction.  We all watched in anticipation as we started seeing these circles on the water.  It was well worth the wait, soon there were two or three whales that came to the surface and tentatively checked out the boat.  Eventually, it seemed that the whales were happy with our presence and they started to really put on a show!

There was a mother whale and her young calf who swam along nearby to the boat and also a juvenile who later happily practiced his flips in front of us which was so exciting.  Just to see these big beautiful creatures content to be in our company was awesome!  Everybody was so excited whenever they popped up no matter whether they performed flips or just swam near us, there was such a great vibe.  We took many pictures but this is something you really should get out and experience in the flesh!