I love that people gather on headlands along the east coast of Australia to watch whales and sunrises.
It’s such a gentle, sweet activity to see friends, families and partners doing together. It reinforces to me that the majority of humanity have good hearts.
Are these gatherings a relatively new phenomenon? I don’t remember sunrises being something that featured in my childhood.
Whale watching didn’t either. Mind you, I was born in the 1960s, more than a decade before commercial whaling was banned.
It’s harrowing to think Australia’s southern right whale population was considered to be virtually extinct around the early 1900s. Only a few hundred remained worldwide when Australia banned commercial whaling in 1979.
While the Australian population has experienced significant growth since then to around 2000-3500, scientists fear this seems to have stalled, with their numbers still far below pre-whaling levels.
However, humpback whales, especially those on the east coast, have shown a strong recovery and have even been delisted from threatened species status in some regions.
I am so grateful that most countries chose not to hunt these gentle giants into extinction. The world feels like a better place with whales in it.
I am hoping to get a lot more whale watching into my life over the coming months.
I’ve also been catching up on my sunrises recently after a very slack period. I watched another one with DD yesterday morning, which was lovely, though sadly there were no whale spouts about.
There were many wonderful spouts on Sunday. I even spotted a few in the distance as I crested the hill outside the cathedral before Eucharist. After the service I headed to Bar Beach carpark to spend a few minutes watching dolphins frolic and whales undulate before going to the hospital to see my dad.
So beautiful and peaceful, a brief, welcome escape from the pressures and ugly headlines of the real world.
Speaking of rising, I had better hustle out of bed. I have three days in a row in the office this week.
The dogs will not be happy about that! They were very reluctant to leave DD’s place last night after their long weekend with him.
I stayed there Sunday night as my car was being serviced up that way yesterday.
As we walked to the car to head home, Bilbo kept turning and trying to head back into the house!
Returning to the real world was a drag …literally.
Song of the day: The Beatles “Here comes the sun”
housegoeshome 
the whales…killer or orcas….on our west coast the coolest thing, after decades their returning into Vancouver’s English Bay and right into False Creek….we know a lot of them call just off the west coast they’re always been, but being so close to those swimming just off the beach is new to a lot and amazing….there recently was a triathlon, and while the swim portion was taking place whales were just not that far off in the distance….the Port of Vancouver’s efforts to keep that water clean and the tanker ships that travel through there slow and as quiet as possible has worked!
What an amazing part of the world to live in. I would love to see orcas