a day ago
First whales return to Hunter waters as Humpback migrations begins again
To sail down the coast, just far enough off the shoreline to see the breakers curl away from you and throw a mist in their wake, as the houses recede into a pattern of specks, is to feel somehow out of time.
A Ulyssean sea gradually clears as the muddy brown of the Hunter River after the flood drains into the unfathomable volume of the ocean. It is an awesome scene. Even on a blustery and clear-cold day on the water, as the Coast XP tour boat throws the occasional mist as it rode along on the swell, there is a sense of escaping to a natural panorama.
Then, it happens. A massive whale crests the surface and blows a spout of breath and water into the air before sliding back into the deep, trailing a broad and prehistoric tail encrusted with barnacles.
The humpbacks are travelling north again.
Some 45,000 whales are expected to make the long swim north, passing the Hunter in what is colloquially termed the Humpback Highway, on their annual migration to warmer waters to calf and breed.
Commercial whaling, which began in Australia shortly after European colonisation and continued until 1978, had devastated whale numbers after southern right and blue whales became scarce and hunters began targeting humpbacks on the east coast killing thousands.
A permanent ban on whaling was introduced at the end of the 1970s and, scientists posit, favourable environmental conditions resulted in an abundance of food, whale numbers have been growing over the past few decades.
The whales swim almost 10,000 kilometres in the annual migration, the sight of which injects around $53 million into the Hunter's tourism economy annually.
To sail down the coast, just far enough off the shoreline to see the breakers curl away from you and throw a mist in their wake, as the houses recede into a pattern of specks, is to feel somehow out of time.
A Ulyssean sea gradually clears as the muddy brown of the Hunter River after the flood drains into the unfathomable volume of the ocean. It is an awesome scene. Even on a blustery and clear-cold day on the water, as the Coast XP tour boat throws the occasional mist as it rode along on the swell, there is a sense of escaping to a natural panorama.
Then, it happens. A massive whale crests the surface and blows a spout of breath and water into the air before sliding back into the deep, trailing a broad and prehistoric tail encrusted with barnacles.
The humpbacks are travelling north again.
Some 45,000 whales are expected to make the long swim north, passing the Hunter in what is colloquially termed the Humpback Highway, on their annual migration to warmer waters to calf and breed.
Commercial whaling, which began in Australia shortly after European colonisation and continued until 1978, had devastated whale numbers after southern right and blue whales became scarce and hunters began targeting humpbacks on the east coast killing thousands.
A permanent ban on whaling was introduced at the end of the 1970s and, scientists posit, favourable environmental conditions resulted in an abundance of food, whale numbers have been growing over the past few decades.
The whales swim almost 10,000 kilometres in the annual migration, the sight of which injects around $53 million into the Hunter's tourism economy annually.
To sail down the coast, just far enough off the shoreline to see the breakers curl away from you and throw a mist in their wake, as the houses recede into a pattern of specks, is to feel somehow out of time.
A Ulyssean sea gradually clears as the muddy brown of the Hunter River after the flood drains into the unfathomable volume of the ocean. It is an awesome scene. Even on a blustery and clear-cold day on the water, as the Coast XP tour boat throws the occasional mist as it rode along on the swell, there is a sense of escaping to a natural panorama.
Then, it happens. A massive whale crests the surface and blows a spout of breath and water into the air before sliding back into the deep, trailing a broad and prehistoric tail encrusted with barnacles.
The humpbacks are travelling north again.
Some 45,000 whales are expected to make the long swim north, passing the Hunter in what is colloquially termed the Humpback Highway, on their annual migration to warmer waters to calf and breed.
Commercial whaling, which began in Australia shortly after European colonisation and continued until 1978, had devastated whale numbers after southern right and blue whales became scarce and hunters began targeting humpbacks on the east coast killing thousands.
A permanent ban on whaling was introduced at the end of the 1970s and, scientists posit, favourable environmental conditions resulted in an abundance of food, whale numbers have been growing over the past few decades.
The whales swim almost 10,000 kilometres in the annual migration, the sight of which injects around $53 million into the Hunter's tourism economy annually.
To sail down the coast, just far enough off the shoreline to see the breakers curl away from you and throw a mist in their wake, as the houses recede into a pattern of specks, is to feel somehow out of time.
A Ulyssean sea gradually clears as the muddy brown of the Hunter River after the flood drains into the unfathomable volume of the ocean. It is an awesome scene. Even on a blustery and clear-cold day on the water, as the Coast XP tour boat throws the occasional mist as it rode along on the swell, there is a sense of escaping to a natural panorama.
Then, it happens. A massive whale crests the surface and blows a spout of breath and water into the air before sliding back into the deep, trailing a broad and prehistoric tail encrusted with barnacles.
The humpbacks are travelling north again.
Some 45,000 whales are expected to make the long swim north, passing the Hunter in what is colloquially termed the Humpback Highway, on their annual migration to warmer waters to calf and breed.
Commercial whaling, which began in Australia shortly after European colonisation and continued until 1978, had devastated whale numbers after southern right and blue whales became scarce and hunters began targeting humpbacks on the east coast killing thousands.
A permanent ban on whaling was introduced at the end of the 1970s and, scientists posit, favourable environmental conditions resulted in an abundance of food, whale numbers have been growing over the past few decades.
The whales swim almost 10,000 kilometres in the annual migration, the sight of which injects around $53 million into the Hunter's tourism economy annually.
