From Mission Beach, it is a 2,800 km to our home in Canberra. The halfway point is around Hervey Bay, which is one of the best places in Australia to see whales. The calm waters of this broad body of water, protected by the sandy barrier of K'gari (Fraser Island) have made this a favoured place for humpback whales to stop over and rest for several days during their annual migrations between more tropical breeding grounds and Antarctic feeding grounds. The whales are here from July to early November and, as it is now the end of July, Hervey Bay was the ideal place for us to stop over, as well, for a few days on our southerly migration back home.

Perhaps we could compare travel notes with the whales. In any case, our stopover not only broke up a long drive, bu gave us the opportunity to join one of the whale watching boat tours and get up close and personal with these magnificent creatures. We were not disappointed, as a pair of young humpbacks were just as curious about us as we were about them, swimming around and under our boat for a couple of hours to give everyone a close encounter. One even did a full breach out of the water witihn 30m of the boat - too quick for the camera, so no photo, but as the fair Nello says - "don't worry about photos .... just enjoy it". I did.

Still, here are a few photos that I took before heeding this advice .... enjoy.

With that, it was the end of our northern roadtrip and we headed on home, with a new appreciation fo the diversity of landscapes of the other half of our continent.