Thankyou Ian and Judy for organising such a great weekend!!! We arrived in Eden at about 11:00 am Saturday after a leisurely drive from Canberra, meeting up with KEZA in Cooma. We caught up with the Victorian Zedders for an impromptu chat and lunch at one of the cafes on the wharf. Next morning we boarded the Cabalou to find some whales. They were in abundance. A mother and calf breached the water right in front of the boat. I managed to photograph the splash but RZM got a pic of both of them in the air (hint hint Mikey). There were some birds feeding on baitfish: After 4 hours of thorough enjoyment we returned and found a park for lunch. Judy and IB certainly put on a great feed. Once again thanks IB and Judy for organising such a great weekend. Cheers, Peter
Hope everyone had a whale of a time:zlove: and I hope they all got safely home. Great to meet a few more zedders and a couple of new PSAs.
Fish, Food, Friends! Fabulous! (Lotsa words, coupla pics) Well done (again) Ian. Third of your cruises I've been on... worth every one of the 650 or so kms needed to get to them! Well, to start at the beginning... Friday morning, up at 0545, give Dredz a bit of a wipe-over, do all the sh's, brekky, forum, then it's off to Reservoir, the Outer Mongolia of Melbourne, to pick up Noxter (PSA for the weekend). Gee, I'm glad I no longer have to contend with peak-hour traffic on a daily basis... bloody horrendous! Coffee at Ngocs, then back into the traffic chaos to meet up with Jack (ZXTT-1) and Roy/Sue (RoysZX) at Traralgon. On the Highway, get a phone call from Roy: "Meet me at Moe Maccas, there's never any parking at Traralgon". Yep, that works OK, get to Moe, and sho 'nuff, there's Roy/Sue and Dean (junior Roy, to be dropped off at the sisters place in Bairnsdale so R&S can enjoy a (naughty?) weekend). Get out of the car, take the sunnies off and put them on top of the car, hugs and kisses (only Sue... Roy gets the handshake). "Hey, where's Jack? Did you phone him, Roy?" "Nah! Don't have his number, I thought you would." Give the bell to Jack... "Where are you?" "At Traralgon Maccas... IN THE DUNNY" OMG, the reverberations were incredible! So we off to Traralgon. Meet up with Jack, all three Zeds parked together in front of the main entrance... wrong again Roy! Lunch over, we get back to the cars and I go to put my sunnies on. Can't find 'em. Go back inside Maccas, not there. Now where did I put them? On the roof, at Moe... Oh! Back on the road, through Sale to Bairnsdale, drop off young Dean (he wasn't too happy about that) top up with fuel and back into it. Leaving Lakes Entrance, I notice I have used a quarter tank for 31km... what the! Turn off the aircon and fuel consumption is back to normal to Eden. Have to look into that! Arrive Eden around 5pm Settle in to the accomodation, then over the road for tea at the Fishermans Club. I order Chicken Florentine... dead bird stuffed with ham, cheese and asparagus, wrapped in filo pastry. Meal arrives... it's been MICROWAVED... urgh, soggy pastry. Tasted good, but! Jack has a call from RZM... on the way at 5.20. Back to the motels, watch a bit of telly, then beddy-byes. (Hey, Ngoc, what's Vietnamese for "snores"?) RZM arrives at about 1140pm... damn good time made. Saturday dawns... hooray! Just imagine the consequences if it hadn't! Up at the crack of... I didn't realize these sorts of times existed! Sunrise over Twofold Bay, from the motel. Then it's down to the wharf for brekky. HUGE serves... I reckon I could have split my "full English" 3-ways. Yummy, tho! Off to the Whale Museum. They really need to feed their fish. This is "Old Tom"... or, at least, his skeleton. This Orca and his pod used to help the whalers at Eden by herding Humpback whales into Twofold Bay, wait until the Humpies had been harpooned and killed, then feed on the lips and tongue (tongue of a full-grown Humpback weighs in at around 4 tonnes) as a reward. This went on for over 50 years, then Tom came into the bay to die. ACT/NSW folks arrived around 11am... there goes the neighbourhood! Hugs and kisses again (I love this forum). Ian and Judy hosted drinks and nibbles in the afternoon (actually had some rain (remember what that is?) so the balcony was a bit slippery, but it didn't collapse!), then off to the local "Chinee" for tea. Been there before and the food is brilliant. What I don't like is that we order, say, 10-12 dishes plus rice for 15 people. It always seems to get served to the same end of the table, then passed down. The early dishes never seem to make it alll the way along. But the later ones were ALL MINE! Sunday! Another of God's miracles! Up early, the boat leaves at 0730. Brekky - muffins and pear jam. Yum! Down to the dock, onto the pontoon alongside which the "Cat Balou" is moored (see! I know these nautical terms). Mikey, who is susceptible to motion sickness and has some special wrist cuffs, explains to us that if they don't work, we will know all about it, but if he is not sick, would it be due to the cuffs, or the psychological effect of wearing them! Boat leaves (with us). Ahoy and avast, ye lubbers! (and other piratical terms). First sightings were of dolphins playing chicken... I thought Tuna was the "chicken of the sea"! Then we saw the "bait-ball" being attacked by the birds (Gannets) and seals. (I have tried to add to Peters' pics rather than duplicate them), and started to get amongst the whales. Unfortunately, most of my whale pics looked like this... I spoke to Erin (she of the painted-on jeans), who was with a group of whale researchers from the Uni of Hawaii, and was using a camera with a huge bazooka telephoto lens. She reckoned that, with my little Ricoh, I would be better off buying postcards... I was sooo deflated! But I did get one good shot... these are the mother and calf that later breached right in front of the boat... post the shot, Mikey, post it! So we got back to the wharf, and proceeded to look for a picnic site where we could demolish Judy's delectables. This was duly acomplished! Jack and I had thought about going to Canberra to see the War Memorial because we were so close (gotta love being a self-funded retiree!). Mentioned our plans to Judy, and she promptly said, "Don't stay at a Motel, stay with us!" What a generous offer, which we accepted with alacrity. But, that's another story!
Yeah talk about exciting, just a humdrum weekend away with the usual miscreants and then Sunday's icing on the cake, a double breach from Mrs Whale and offspring in front of the boat. One word "AWESOME". Made my day and month and probably year as well. I'll post some pics of the War Museam when I get a chance. A VERY big thankyou to Ian and Judy for their kind invite to saty over and I do apologize for the suggestion of eggs bendict for braekfast, had I known what was involved I would have kept my big mouth shut. (It was yummy but)
awesome idea!! love it guys love it lol i saw the 'whale watching' title and thought it was a trip to see the cylinder at the pub lol dunno y i thought that
i go out in the bay here in my 12 foot dinghy and have a look at the whales, gets a bit wobbly when they surface right next to you, i wonder if they're the same whales?
thanks.... to Ian & Judy for a great weekend,good to meet the guys from canberra. [Good shot of the whale splash Doug]
If they're the same sized humpbacks... As we saw in Eden then I wouldn't wanna be in cooee of them in a dinghy...a breach from one of those could do major damage to your well being...
Great Trip... Thanks to Ian and Judy for organizing the event and of course for the yummy lunch...I came back for seconds... A big thanks to Doug and Jack for having me on board on the trip up...overtaking in a TT does feel good...:zlove: Great to meet up with the Canberra people. We've all seen a zillion docos on whales, but nothing compares to seeing them in the flesh...it's a real buzz. Anyone who says they don't get excited seeing a humpback breach at about 20 metres from you is a liar. If you haven't done it, a trip out is highly recommended... A big thanks also to Mikey for ferrying me home on the Sunday nite...and yes your shocks are just a tad harder than stock ones... ...Also loved how you negotiate those twisties...a great feeling... Here are some of my snaps : Whale fluke-ing. Whale blow-ing. Me stand-ing. (Ex-whale harpooner in whale museum) Me point-ing. (Don't say there's a resemblance... ) I'm trying to do exactly what the sign says...trying to touch it with my eyes only... Portrait shot of Old Tom. Me beside Old Tom. Yeah...no problems, next time I land a Great White, I will carefully nurse it back into the ocean... This is the Incinerator...it has quite an amazing history...Doug would be able to tell ya...I can't remember it exactly. It's moored here on it's way to Tassie from Norfold Island. Eden wharf. Views from our motel...not a bad shot Doug. Meeting up with Roy and Sue at Moe Maccas OK Mikey show us your prized whale shot...
we get ones called "Southern Wright Whales" here, they are huge in excess of 18 metres long the adults, you can even look at them from the beach i think they come into the shallows to rub their bellies or something
You should be able to see humpbacks (these are the ones which put on the most vigorous displays) and, rarely, a blue as well! There are several discrete populations around the globe, travelling up and down the east and west coasts of Oz, South Africa and South America (this is all info from the Uni of Hawaii prof that was on the trip... he gave an impromtu (and welcome) lecture while we were cruising back to port). Apparently the females always return to the last area where they were sucessfully impregnated, only changing if they don't become pregnant for several seasons. The males go where they can find a bit, then nick off (typical, hey Girls?). This way the gene pool stays diversified. Gestation is just over 11 months, with the calf (all 1.5tonnes of it) being born in the warmer tropical waters during the southern winter. Mother and calf stay there for a few weeks until the calf is strong enough to make the trip south, mother feeding on the local fish, and feeding the calf about 300liters per day of a very rich (50% fat) milk. From mid-September through to mid-November, they journey slowly southwards to the Antarctic, where they circle the continent, and the calf learns to feed on plankton and krill. The calf stays with mother until they journey north again (March/May), occasionally staying together, but most often the calf, now almost full grown, wanders off to seek it's own fortune. The northern journey is usually much further off the coast than the southern trip, speculation being that if the calf tires on the southern trip, there will sheltered water nearby where it can recover. Sorry for the verbosity, but I found the whole experience really interesting and rewarding.
As near as I can remember (Jack was talking to the guy in the pic, I was just listening), the story goes like this... The "Incinerator" was cruising off the Queensland coast when it hit heavy weather near one of the offshore islands. It was capsized by a rogue wave, the crew was rescued, but it was too rough to recover the vessel. It was next sighted, weeks later, off Gabo Island (eastern-most tip of Victoria), then a while after that, off Wollongong (that's right, down and back). A few months later it was again sighted, this time off the New Zealand north coast, but now it was right-way-up. According to the chap Jack was speaking to, the problem with catamarans is that the weight of water in them once capsized makes them almost impossible to right without causing major structural damage, so it must have been an enormous wave which put it back on its keel(s). The next sighting, after more than 6 months in the water, was off Norfolk Island and since it was right-way-up, it was able to be towed to the island and dragged ashore to be salvaged. What she was doing in Eden harbour was waiting for clear weather in Bass Strait. Since the mast and rigging had been destroyed by the capsize and long immersion in the sea (stainless steel does not like salt water), motive power was only two jury-rigged 25HP outboards, so calm weather was essential for the crossing. The cat was on its way back to the original builder to be refurbished (it left Eden on Sunday afternoon). Amazing, huh!
"I'm the King of the World" Sorry Pete, couldn't resist it... some people seemed to have a "Titanic" experience!
Whatever do you mean Doug? I believe it hit an iceberg and sank. Actually I was hanging on for dear life. Cheers, Peter
OK, I know this happened 2 weekends ago, but thems the breaks. Big kudos to IB and Judy for organising the weekend and a great Sunday lunch, and hope all the other Zedders on the trip enjoyed it as much as I did. So now to the pics ......... I guess this is what the weekend was all about! Mum whale and junior decided to have a bit of fun right in front of the boat - without any warning. When the were close to the surface plenty of shots were possible, but for this action they came from the deep. I was lucky to be in the right spot on the boat with the camera cocked, but still blurred the shot with camera movement dammit. Am I the only one, or can others see a Veilside rear wing in this shot??? The extremely rare twin fin humpback coasts past the boat . Left to right - Ngoc, Jack, Judy and IB. Jaws wouldn't pose for me , woulda looked good coming up at the boat! The dolphins came out to play early in the trip .... While Percy and a dozen or so of his mates waited back in the harbour. Don't stand under the lamp poles on the wharf, there's usually a pelican at the top of them - could get messy! This was our ocean transport - Cat Balou. This in the Norfolk Incinerator that Doug spoke about, probably on its way to Tassie. In the red corner we had RZM, Marcus, Douggie and Keza - all looking good. Aerial view from IB's motel room - great view! I like the Z view from the top. Gotta go again next year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
