Sunday, October 25 2009, 23:49

A whale of a time in Jervis Bay

I've dropped the ball with the blog recently. In all its six year history (six years!), I've never managed to miss blogging for a whole month, let alone two! Oops. But before it slips to three months, here's another entry - and this month is three years since I moved back to Sydney - how time flies! Luckily I've got the evening home to tap another one out, while John is having dinner with the PM in Parliament House (as you do).

Matt and Mark, our Canadian chums, are going to be heading back to the frozen wastes of Alberta before too long, so they're spending their last weeks down under sightseeing, here and in NZ. We joined them for a weekend down in Jervis Bay, a few hours' drive down the coast from Sydney. Our home for the weekend was nestled 13km inside Booderee National Park, which we finally arrived at, after a cautious drive through the darkened bush, stopping for bilbies, wallabies, and the occasional kangaroo...

The weather turned out to be much better than forecast, so our Saturday morning bushwalk through the national park was a gloriously hot stroll punctuated by an unexpected miracle at an ocean lookout; our brief stop was rewarded with a glimpse of a humpback whale breaching just off the coast. Even though it was a tiny, short splash, I've filled in the holes in my memory with all that footage I've seen over the years of this charismatic leviathan, courtesy of Sir David Attenborough. It was amazing. Sunday's whale-watching trip was looking even more exciting.

The local fauna was ready for us back at home. Outside our cosy cabin, an eastern grey kangaroo was hopping about. The cameras came out in a big rush, and Mark was on his belly in the grass with big lens extended. It wasn't the only thing extended, as our friendly roo appeared to be getting far too excited by merely cropping the grass for his evening meal...

On Sunday, we packed up and drove down to Huskisson to board our whale-watching boat for the next three hours. The effusive lady in the office had assured us that the boat had been following around a breaching mother and calf all morning, and the captain himself optimistically suspected that our sightings would run into double figures. If by this he meant 'two', he was right. After two and a half hours, we finally caught sight of a mother and calf, but they demurely remained beneath the waves for the most part, occasionally brazenly flashing us a cheeky bit of dorsal fin. Obviously this didn't faze the photographers on board, who snapped away as if Princess Di and Lord Lucan had appeared to walk hand in hand across the water. I was a bit disappointed until surprisingly, our pair of whales surfaced right next to the boat - they were enormous! It was hard not to be just as excited as the day before.

Hm. What other news? A quick round-up for you. I am no longer a total novice skier - I picked up some extra snow skills on our office trip to Thredbo in September. Speaking of work, I will be a permanent employee of Razorfish from Monday! No longer a contractor's life for me. And finally... I purchased this week a lovely gizmo to sit on the balcony and zap mosquitoes, so this summer we will be able to relax inside with the balcony doors flung wide in the warm summer air and listen to the gentle crackle of bitey bugs as they barbecue abruptly on my new toy. Hurrah!