mother earth: Fantastic wild Dolphin Watch at Nelson Bay, Australia

Fantastic wild Dolphin Watch at Nelson Bay, Australia

By Lalitha Vaidyanathan

It was spring time, late September–early October 2012 in Eastern Australia and I travelled with my husband from Mumbai ,India to Sydney to spend two-week holidays with our son.

In our earlier trips we used to spend one week on our own ---once (2009) at Hobart and surroundings in Tasmania, a southern most island of Australia and another time (2011) we went to Perth, in the western coast of Australia,   headquarters of that country’s mining operations. We spend family time with our son at Sydney only for a week on both the occasions .

However, in 2012 holiday, we decided to stay with our son for complete two weeks in Sydney.
This time, our son decided to surprise us with a gift ---Dolphin watch at Nelson Bay – a major holiday playground and the main resort area of Port Stephens. It's located on the southern shores of Port Stephens.

He booked an independent villa on the Victoria Parade, a road running alongside of the Bay with a picturesque view. Port Stephens , a two and a half hour drive north of Sydney and is famous for its golden sandy beaches with crystal clear water and limitless blue skies, beautiful place for morning walks including bush walks and for doing Surya namaskar (Sun worship).

In the evenings , we could witness several types of birds returning to their homes—the huge trees along the Port Stephens. At nights   we enjoyed the clear sky to watch millions of stars. It was a feeling of one with nature.

In the early hours of October 5, 2012 we drove to Nelson Bay and dumped our belongings and the car at 47,Victoria Parade, the villa where we stayed for three days. The view from the house was fantastic--, real feast for the eyes---limitless blue skies and sandy beaches and the blue sea.

We went to the Port Stephens to take a 12 noon cruise for dolphin watch. The name of the cruise was Moonshadow and we were first served buffet lunch on the lower deck of the cruise. We vegetarians too had good choice of food. After the lunch we went on the upper deck to have better view of the Nelson Bay and the blue stretch of water.

It was cold, cloudy and little bit windy and so we were not sure whether we will be able to watch dolphins in their action. Anyway the cruise moved towards the resident dolphins (dolphins in the wild) towards the mouth of the Pacific ocean from the Nelson Bay.

The cruise also went around a few islands and on the way back the cruise captain opened the `twist and splash water slide’ for the public and those who were interested in getting into water without getting lost had a really fantastic time and I only took pictures and videographed them.

May be next time , I should go prepared for that and enjoy the splashes of inland waters of blue Pacific ocean.

As I said, because of the bad weather, we could not spot even a single dolphin that day and came back disappointed. However, on our way out of the cruise, the cruise managers gave us coupons saying that we can again watch the dolphins on a clear day. We were thrilled and I do not know it was possible in any other country without paying for the second time.

On October 6, we went for early morning walk on the golden beach just opposite our villa and then we took the car to explore down the road from Nelson Bay. We found a fascinating glimpse of military history right by the ocean.

Wild Dolphins playing in the Nelson Bay Oct 6,2012

Just before taking into this military historical place which was located on a high slope, we went for a bush walk and reached beautiful Zenith beach. Then we came back and went for Fort Tomaree walk.

My husband and myself went only up to the military heritage ---– World War II gun emplacements, built in 1941 to defend the east coast of Australia. While my son took a further track along with lot of youngsters to the elevated walkways on Tomaree Head Summit walk.

He told us that we missed the breathtaking lookout views over Port Stephens and nature reserves like Cabbage Tree Island.

After finishing this trip, we had our breakfast and decided to try for dolphin watching during the afternoon as the sky was clear. And to our luck, we found several wild dolphins playing around in the blue waters. We really enjoyed and our day was complete with so many achievements.
We were told that there were two different species of dolphins lived there in and around Port Stephens.

Photos by Lalitha Vaidyanathan and Vivek Vaidyanathan

Resident Dolphins of Nelson Bay Oct 6,2012