Last Wednesday I went on a whale watching cruise in Sydney Harbour. It was amazing! I think it's fair enough to say that I can get very excited by animals. They totally amaze me. So when you end up in Australia and that your local pigeons are actually ibis, that birds have yellow legs and beaks and kangaroos are common, you get to be very excited on a daily basis. We've been living in Sydney for almost 9 months now and I simply can't get over the amazing australian wildlife. So imagine how I felt on a whale watching cruise! I mean...WHALES! Totally awesome. Even if I was sick practically the whole time. That part wasn't fun at all. But totally worth it!
PS: I didn't take these pics. I didn't bring my camera as I didn't have the appropriate lens and wanted to just enjoy as much as possible. Thank you Marine for the nice pics!
We even got to see dolphins and seals!
Susan Stone
Great post, Marie! It has never occurred to me to look for whales in Sydney Harbor. It's something to keep in mind for the next time we visit Sydney. If you were feeling seasick in Sydney Harbor, I strongly recommend that you don't go out to the Great Barrier Reef from Cairns - when we did that I was horribly sick, the worst I've ever been, and was unable to enjoy the reef at all. I hated paying a lot of money to be sick and miserable… 🙂 I share your excitement at getting to be around animals. They make our lives much more interesting.
Marie
You can only go whale watching during australian winter and spring. The funny thing is that I totally forgot I was usually seasick until...I got sick. The idea that I could be sick didn't occur to me at all (I guess I was too excited by the idea of seing whales). Otherwise I would have taken some medicines. I'm sad to hear that you were not able to enjoy the Great Barrier Reef 🙁 That's on my bucket list!
Susan Stone
We'll be there in summer so whale watching is out for us. Too bad. If you do go to the Barrier Reef, besides taking medicine (which I did), I strongly recommend staying on the lower level of the catamaran and lying down for the whole trip out there. I wasn't smart enough to stay below or lying down on the way out, but it really helped on the way back. If your medicine is Meclizine, make sure you take two, and take them an hour before boarding the catamaran. Also take more with you for the return trip. I hope and pray that all this will help you so that you have a good time going there. Apparently it's possible to take a helicopter out there, but for me it was a prohibitively expensive option. 🙂
Marie
I would love the helicopter but that's definitively out of my budget too!
Ash- foodfashionparty
Lovely pictures. Sydney is definitely a place I wanna visit next.
I remember going to Santa Cruz, CA(where the water is darn cold) for whale watching after being coaxed by my kid. Not a great experience, after couple of hours of waiting, we goto watch a whale, it was windy and crazy.. the whole thing was not memorable. But, you seem to enjoy animal life and that would have been a lot of fun.
Marie
You would love Sydney 🙂 Your experience of whale watching doesn't sound great indeed, I'm sorry to hear that! We were very lucky and got to see lots of whales, and even dolphins and seals! The weather was beautiful, even if it was cold because we were pretty much in the middle of the ocean. It's definitively something I would do again if I were sure not to be sick again!