It’s whale season here on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, Australia. Whales head north to warmer waters from the Antarctic to breed and give birth. Just a few days ago, we were taking the ocean road to head home the long way when I spotted a whale breaching of the coast. We parked the car at one of the lookouts and enjoyed the view. Unfortunately, we left our camera at home. Today we set off with the right equipment but sadly they were 15 to 20 kilometres off-shore. Even the long distance lens didn’t help. We met a gentleman who is one of the official whale counters who told us that 396 whales passed the headland and just a couple of kilometres off the coastline yesterday. Sadly, these are the best of 50 photos we took today.

Because you have read this far, I shall reward you with a few photos taken back in June 2016 – three years before we moved here. We had brought my dad up here from Sydney for a holiday. The whale watching cruise was the highlight of his trip. These whales came within 20 feet of the boat with one coming up alongside the boat to check out the humans.

Note: Boat owners are not allowed to approach whales but sometimes the whales come to the boat so engines are switched off to wait for the whales to move on.

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