The seasonal migration of humans to vantage points along the Clarence Valley’s coastline has been “The best in living memory,” according to spokeswhale Harriet Humpback.
Communicating with your reporter yesterday – by way of slapping the water with her enormous pectoral fin – Ms Humpback claimed that it hasn’t been merely the number of humans flocking to headlands and lookouts, it’s more “the sheer loveliness of these folk, oooohing and aaahing at us as we make our way north.
“You see, what the good people of the Clarence Valley may not realise, is that whales – with our gigantic brains, our echolocation, sonar, and, let’s face it, a lot of time on our hands – are very much tuned in to you guys on shore.
“When you see us repeatedly splashing the water with our tails and fins, that’s us actually counting how many humans we can see – and when you see us breach, that’s when we’ve had enough of counting and just want to jump around and do fun whaley things.
“This season, so far, I have to say it’s been a stellar turnout of human beings all along the Clarence Valley beaches for us to admire. From Red Rock, Arrawarra, Wooli, Diggers and Minnie Water to Sandon, Brooms, Redcliff, Angourie, Yamba, Iluka… we love catching up with the mix of old and new faces lining the shore every year, and we DO enjoy it whenever a person-watching boat kindly brings a few of you out to our watery domain to allow us to get even closer look at you. Within reason of course.”
Tiring from tapping out messages with her five-metre pectoral fin, Harriet signed off with some passing thoughts:
“Hey, just quietly, thanks for drawing a line under that whaling nonsense back in the 1960s, by the way. There were only a few hundred of us left but now, well, just look at us all!
“I wish we could stay longer and just hang out, but we’ve been on the move for well over 4,000 kilometres now and there’s only another 600 odd K further north to go before we get to start mating and calving.
“And that’s not a party you really wanna turn up late to, if you know what I mean.
“Anyway, It’s good to see you, Clarence Valley! We’ll see you in a few months on our way back down to Antarctica again, to fuel up for next year’s party season.
“Lots of love. Bye!”
