Humpback Whales

Their scientific name is Megaptera novaeangliae.
They travel the great distance of 10,000 kilometers or 6,213.71192 miles. There are different ‘branches’ of humpback whales and they usually follow the same migratory route-1) Hawaii to Alaska and the western coast of the Americas, 2)The eastern seaboard has a group that moves down to the Carribbean and up to Maine, and then3) the Antarctic and Australian group.

Humpback whales eat a ton of food a day (literally), usually krill, plankton, sand lance (in Maine) and other small fish- herring, mackerel, and squid. Krill, which are very small only 6 centimeters or 2.36220472 inches long, have large eyes for such a small body and are mostly clear but have a reddish orange section on their back. They can breed more than once during the season and they can lay up to 10,000 eggs at once.

Although these whales are big(max 16 Meters or 55 feet and Weigh 40 tons or 80,000 lbs), they are not the biggest whale.

Shortly after Europe colonized Australia the Humpbacks were hunted for their oil and baleen (or ‘whalebone’). Harpoon guns and steam-driven whaling boats made hunting more efficient and cause d the humpback o come very close to extinction. They have made a strong comeback.



Humpback calves stay with their mother for 11-12 months, but during this time, they are often attacked by killer whales or sharks. Although we heard there was a calf born in the Sydney Harbor while we were there, we did not actually get to see it.

Humpback whales can be identified from the shore by their ‘blow’- the spray of water when the come up to breathe,

photo by http://www.mersea.com/humpback_info_page_2.htm 

by the shape of their back when they ‘surface’,

by their ‘fluke’ or tail,

Photo from http://www.uq.edu.au/whale/humpback-whales

by their pectoral fin or when they ‘wave’,

and of course if they ‘breach’ the water- or jump- it is easy to tell what kind of whale you are seeing.

(photo by http://www.familyadventuretravelworks.com/tag/humpback-whales )

We saw all of these except the breach.

It was an unexpected treat to see these whales as we were driving down the Great Coastal Highway. Photos are ours, unless otherwise noted.

NOTE: My apologies to Beej for not posting this report earlier. I just missed it.  And as an addendum, we can now see whales from our balcony - Unbelievable! Stay tuned for more... Mom

Twelve Apostles

Back on the Road Again…

We have now been on the road for a while, we lost a bit of time while whale watching and still had a few things we wanted to see before sunset, so we rolled on.

The landscape began changing… from this…

to huge trees ...

To a forest feel....

(sorry its blurry)

To rolling hills and pastures…

And then we arrived!! The Twelve Apostles!

What amazing, awe inspiring, breathtaking beauty!

We got there just in time and were able to see the changes as the sun set!

WOW- Is an understatement!!

We then made the long drive back, mostly in the dark. We found a nice family-friendly Italian restaurant and The Tall One completed his birthday celebrations with a piece of delicious ‘mud cake’. And then the day ended as it began, some read- alouds in the car and then sleep.  You know it is a long day when your children start the day sleeping in the car and end the day sleeping in the car.  But it was a good day and a good way to celebrate the birth of my second child! Love you, Tall One!

To see more pics check out The Older's blog http://theramblingstone11.blogspot.com/ 

Great Ocean Road- the Beginning

We were well on our way before sunrise! 

This ferris wheel is in downtown Melbourne. It was built for some special event and then after a few years there was a very hot summer. Can anyone back home relate to that?  So, the 105 F temp. are very unusual here (and kinda hard for us to imagine) and caused the bolts to buckle. It has been in a state of renovation for quite awhile. 

We headed down the Great Ocean Road. It reminded us of the road along the coast of California! It was beautiful.  Some of us missed a large part of the beginning of the drive…

We made a few stops along the way. I will divide them up, so this isn’t a really long post. Here is the first stop... of course, FOOD! HA

And interesting little coffee shop call the Red Till. Yep, you ordered and paid at the red till. It has a really interesting incandescent light bulb ‘sculpture’ hanging from the ceiling.

The food was yummy- blueberry pancakes, eggs on toast and The Tall One order a smoked salmon omelet. Here are the Foodies….

And then, with tummies full, we ventured onward!

And were rewarded by seeing THIS: 

OOOHHH, AAAHHHH. It really was pretty and it ‘glowed’ in the winter sunlight. Can you see it?

So we stopped and went exploring! Yay! Between the lighthouse and the light bulbs at the coffee shop, we were sure it was going to be a very 'enlightening' day!! hee hee

Here we are....

And we took the nearby paths…

 .

Which led to ….a beach.

We looked at some shells, did a little ballet (not really), threw rocks into the ocean…

Did a little ‘rock climbing’….

It was an incredible view of the ocean.

We hiked back, climbed in the car and headed on down the road. Can’t wait to show you what else we saw!! SERIOUSLY COOL stuff coming!! Thanks for checking on us!

Oyster farms

This is Beej here – reporting interesting information on oysters. This post was created because I was curious about oysters after seeing this:

Here is what we found out from www.oystersautralia.org.au .They get credit for all the info and pictures- except the oyster farm picture we took from the boardwalk.

We are only going to talk about Australian oysters.

 New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania produced almost all of the 16.45 million dozen oysters sold in 2007: 

There are two types of oysters that are native to Australia- the Sydney Rock Oysters and Angasi (flat) oysters.

Oysters are bivalves. They eat by filtering algae and stuff, like phytoplankton, from sea water.

Oysters need clear salt water at a specific pH and relatively warm  temp (14-30 Celsius).

Oysters change gender during their life (WHAT??)- females release up to 40 million eggs  and then the male releases over twice that many sperm to fertilize the eggs. Babies –called larvae or spat- settle on rocks and hard places to grow.

Oyster farms then relocate these spat to hatcheries (shown below) and then to the trays and baskets and rafts like the ones we saw from the boardwalk.

Oyster farming seems pretty easy because they don’t have to feed or use chemicals on the oysters. They just separate the oysters by size (this is usually done by machine) and get rid of the bad ones.

There are a few diseases that can harm or kill the oysters- but the diseases don’t affect humans. And sometimes bad weather is a problem for the oysters.

 

I have yet to taste raw oysters, but I think I would like to try them… have you eaten them? What did you think?

The Beach

The ocean is beautiful and it always reminds me of our creator’s amazing power!

Did you notice the surfers?

It was a bit chilly, but not freezing… the temperate is always reported in Celsius, and we still are working on making the numbers work in our Fahrenheit brains. I believe it was around 55degrees F on this day.

Essie and Beej worked on a sand castle with a moat; sadly there is no photographic record. L But hopefully they will get to make one again soon. Essie also spent most of her time collecting shells. She is definitely a ‘collector’ personality, just like The Oldest. She loved the feel of the waves splashing over her feet.

Beej ‘played’ with another pelican. The pelicans seem to be as curious about people as we are about them. We are keeping our distance though- they are huge!

Beej also loved the tide pools. This is one of his pictures…. He assures me that there is a crab in this pool picture, but I have not been able to find it.

We moved down the coast a bit and it became much rockier. It was beautiful!

We LOVED the beach at Merimbula!!