A couple of the boats that go out to whale-watch at Hervey Bay offer the possibility (no guarantee, you understand) to swim with the whales.  Years ago in Alaska, we’d had the terrifying experience of a humpback surfacing less than 10 metres away from us while we were sitting in a tiny fibreglass kayak in the middle of Glacier Bay, and the chance to be terrified again was too much to pass up.  We chose Tasman Venture, a mid-sized fast catamaran with about 20 passengers that offered whale watching (possibly whale swimming) plus a few activities, including another kayak, snorkelling and hiking on the west side of K’gari (say GAR-EE), which is what we now call Fraser Island.  Fortunately, despite being mostly grey and overcast, it didn’t rain and the whales put on a show. 

We must have seen 50 whales during the day and probably saw as many of those insane breaches where these 15m, 40 tonne creatures launch themselves into the air.  In our specific terms, that’s the same length as ATGANI and the Landcruiser combined and 6 times the weight – unbelievable.  It was just as amazing how close they came to the boat and how much they watched us – in all probability, they were on a human watching tour organised by some whale entrepreneurs.  Pictures tell the story best, so here’s a few.

But what of the swimming?  Well it was a bit of a crock.  A rope is looped off the back of the boat and you hang on to the rope about 1 metre from the boat and, masked and snorkelled, stick your head under water – not exactly a swim.  Nonetheless, when a massive whale decides to glide past a couple of metres below you, it’s still stupendous, so great fun.  Sadly, due to operator error and/or equipment malfunction, there are no pics except this one.  Fail.

The whales had been great and they proceeded to follow us around for the rest of the day.  We stopped off on the “remote” west side of K’gari to go hiking and kayaking and to have a swim and every time we looked back at the water, the next moment another humpback appeared. Our hosts had a remarkable amphibious craft, Sealegs, for ferrying us to and from shore which I loved – basically a fast RIB which, when it got to shore, simply put down its wheeled legs and drove up the beach, then knelt down so passengers could clamber off dryfooted – ingenious!   It was a long and totally satisfactory day out and we couldn’t recommend it more highly.

Despite Lesley’s maiden name being Fraser, neither of us had ever been to this enormous sand island which must be some sort of Queensland crime.  We wanted to take the truck but knew that ATGANI was too big, so it stayed behind in Hervey Bay while we took the barge to Kingfisher resort for a couple of nights.  The resort itself was OK, with its best feature being the outstanding sunset bar, given our spectacular weather.  Our deal came with a “resort credit” but, naturally, it couldn’t be spent on anything you actually wanted (a massage or a drink, for example) so we spent it on the only thing available, a bush-tucker experience which was quite fun, if a bit of a joke.  The recipes included a pesto, which was exactly like the Italian version but with pinenuts swapped out for macadamia (bauple) and bunya nuts – not sure where basil and parmesan were usually sourced in the dreamtime bush.

Far better though was our big K’gari drive.  Tyres down to 18psi and 150 km later we’d seen lots of exciting sand tracks through the forests (way more dense than expected), a series of beautiful freshwater perched lakes (the most anywhere in the world), a shipwreck (SS Maheno, both wrecked and bombed), a dingo (re-named wongari here) and quite a lot of big 4WD tourist buses doing exactly the same thing.  The eastern beach is a big sand highway with speed limits and all – quite a few of the 4WDs charging up and down the beach seemed to think that the speed signs were lower limits but, for us, the driving was at low tide, easy and largely uneventful – a clear case of the equipment being better than the operator.

Remote camping in the dunes looked like fun but, for the most part, camping is advised in fenced areas, especially if you have kids with you.  Dingo-Safe is a big deal here and there seem to be ever more frequent interactions.  The only wongari we saw had a tracking collar on.   When you’re out hiking, the rangers suggest you carry a big stick – sound advice for life in general!

Hervey Bay and surrounds had been great, despite delivering our most exciting caravan park arrival.  Drama had unfolded when we’d arrived – they’d had no trouble taking all our money a few days earlier but had cancelled our booking, sold our spot to someone else, and were now completely full!  While I’d been annoyed but philosophical, the girl wonder chose the nuclear option – if she was going to have a bad day, so was everyone else!  She’s on point duty from now on – they found us a spot, moved us to a much better one the next day, gave us a huge bunch of ugly branded merch and refunded all our money – so dramatic, so cheap!

Nonetheless, we were still trying to find our perfect beachfront campsite.  Reports of Agnes Water had been positive and we had cleverly/luckily secured a few days at Seventeen-Seventy campground, allegedly right on the beach.  So, with high hopes and low expectations, we said, “See yez next year” to our Hervey Bay neighbours who were in this caravan park for FOUR months, and headed north.  Maybe another altercation coming up?  What could possibly go wrong?