HUMPBACK

This is what we hoped to see but, did not see up close - photo courtesy of the web.

Ever since moving to Sydney, we have wanted to go whale watching.  Humpback whales migrate from the Antarctic Seas to the warm waters off the coast of Queensland, Australia each year.  About 20,000 humpback whales make this journey during the months of May to August.  

They are headed to the warm waters of Queensland to give birth and nurse their young.  Once the baby whales have put on enough blubber to survive in the arctic cold waters they will travel back down south.  Because of this great migration, it is really easy to go whale watching and most often see them.  We have a good friend that lives on the coast here in Sydney and a whale came into his beach for a rest not long ago.  Our friend was able to sit on his surfboard and watch the whale up close and personal.  

The girls were feeling quite jealous and wanted to be able to see whales in their natural habitat.  When the opportunity presented itself to go on a whale watching trip, we jumped at the chance.  We were so excited despite of the fact that this would require a few of us to board a boat.  It was a relatively calm day on the ocean so we did not have the seasick feeling that some of us have had in the past.  We keep ourselves outside and staring out at the horizon because it does get a little bit rocky on the open sea.  But, we saw WHALES!!!

We were able to follow a pod of 3 humpback whales (a mother, a calf and a male) as they traveled up to Queensland.  They were about 75 meters off the starboard side of our boat for about 3 hours.  It was fascinating to watch and learn so much about them.  During the entire tour, we had a whale expert, from the Taronga Zoo, on board our vessel filling us with every humpback whale fact you could think to ask.  It was an awesome day.  We felt so blessed to see them.  No one felt sick and we stayed warm - SUCCESS!  

The only thing that we did not get to see during our whale watching tour was BREACHING.  This is when a humpback whale jumps out of the water and basically backflops into the water.  It is NOT something that they do often, however, the day before we happened to be on the shore of Dee Why Beach and we saw a pod of whales that were breaching like crazy through our binoculars.  It was unbelievable, however we would have like to have been closer.... 

COOL YULE

We are living in winter and missing the warm days and nights.  Considering we lived in COLD Michigan for 5 years, winter in Sydney is relative.  However, I can safely say that because I have experienced both, your body does adjust.  Tom and I are not big fans of the winter so the weather in Sydney is definitely a plus.

It is unique to think that many of our friends and family on the other side of the world are swimming, having beach days, BBQ's and summer activities as we are bundled up in our warm weather gear here in Australia.  This last weekend we decided to embrace Sydney's cooler weather and head down to Darling Harbor where they hold an activity called the Cool Yule.

They have set up an ice skating rink complete with Swiss ski village (selling concessions), igloos and a winter wonderland.  The girls love the idea of ice skating however, they have only been one other time.  They were looking forward to being able to  ice skate outside because it would be warmer in the sunshine but, we did not even think about the fact that the ice would be melting as they skated.  The sun in Australia is very strong due to the fact that there is a HUGE hole in the ozone layer that happens to be placed directly over this lovely country.  The ice was melting away and when you fell you got quite wet but, overall they had a great time.  It was an adventure and the girls have a great appreciation for those AMAZING Olympic figure skaters!  They are awesome!

This little penguin is Claire's "ice skating helper"....she eventually got the hang of it.

Jane had a few "free" loops from Claire.  Big sissy is the BEST!