Around 60,000 humpbacks now migrate along Australia’s east coast. Photo / Supplied
Australia’s first overnight humpback charter lets travellers match the whales’ pace, proving that slow, low-impact travel brings the most memorable wildlife moments, writes Rosamund Brennan.
The sun drops behind Hervey Bay as our yacht drifts off K’gari’s Sandy Cape. I stand at the bow, the breeze cool on my cheeks, while a lone humpback glides in, his dark back shining like polished onyx. He rolls beneath the surface in a slow, hypnotic dance.
I’m aboard the new Wake Up with Whales overnight trip with Fraser Island Boat Charters, Australia’s only humpback charter where you can spend the night on the water. The skipper, Scott, grins beside me. “That’s classic Hervey Bay mugging,” he says. “Every day is different, but whales coming in close like this, circling the boat and checking us out, that’s the magic.”
Unlike the “humpback highway” elsewhere on Australia’s east coast, Hervey Bay is a playground, a safe, shallow refuge where whales pause on their long migration between Antarctica and the tropics. “They’re not just passing through,” Scott adds. “They come here to relax. It’s their nursery.”
As twilight deepens we glide north through the Great Sandy Strait, the mainsail taut in a gentle breeze and the sea turning a soft pewter under the first stars.
Dinner is simple and perfect: fish straight from the barbecue, bright citrusy ceviche and a crisp chardonnay. Between bites Scott lowers a hydrophone and a low, otherworldly song hums through the deck speakers: humpbacks weaving their evening serenade. “The song changes slightly every year,” he says. “You can fall asleep with it playing in your cabin if you like.”
Later I step onto the foredeck, a blanket tight around my shoulders. The same whale drifts nearby, moving with deliberate grace, a slow underwater ballet. He surfaces in unhurried arcs and exhales a misty sigh that hangs in the cool night air. There is no engine noise and no chatter. Only the hush of water and the steady pulse of a giant keeping us company.
“One morning I got out of bed, walked past the window to make a coffee, and there was a whale right outside the window. It never gets old,” Scott says, watching the water stretch toward K’gari’s low dunes.
The scene around us could be the one he remembers. Morning light turns Hervey Bay to liquid silver as I cradle my coffee and two humpbacks surface metres from the hull. One rises to spyhop, its dark eye catching mine before it slips beneath the tide.
Scott points to the shoreline and explains that Hervey Bay is the world’s first World Whale Heritage Site, protecting these calm waters as a humpback sanctuary. Local operators meet strict eco standards and work with the Butchulla people to keep encounters quiet and respectful. In town, a statue of Nala, a matriarch known to return year after year, honours the whales that keep coming back.
Back on shore I meet Dr Wally Franklin, an adjunct fellow at the University of the Sunshine Coast, and statistician Dr Lyndon Brooks. Over a drink they share brand-new research, released in August 2025, that helps explain why Hervey Bay feels so alive with whales.
“Our preliminary modelling shows the east coast humpback population has grown to around 60,000 whales by 2024,” Franklin says. That is up from about 24,000 in 2015, when growth was already an impressive 11% a year. Using a capture–recapture model and four decades of tail-fluke photos uploaded to the global citizen-science site HappyWhale, the team has built one of the largest humpback datasets in the world.
A century ago humpbacks were hunted to the brink of extinction, and by the early 1960s only a few hundred remained before commercial whaling was banned. Brooks calls their recovery “close to exponential,” noting that more than 15,000 individual whales have now been identified thanks to contributors ranging from tourists with smartphones to veteran researchers. “Citizen scientists are invaluable,” Franklin adds. “Every uploaded photo helps us track these animals and monitor when the curve eventually levels off.”
I think of the male who circled our boat in moonlight, his species once nearly erased from these waters. Now he is part of a population surging back to historic abundance.
The next day we cross the wide expanse of the Great Sandy Strait, a sheltered waterway between the mainland and K’gari. Bottlenose dolphins surface nearby and a dugong grazes in the seagrass. We anchor at Rooney Point, and some guests slip into the water as a pair of adolescent humpbacks drift below.
This unhurried rhythm defines the trip. “Overnight sailing is more sustainable and far more intimate than a day boat,” Scott says. “We can sail to cut the engines, use less fuel, and let encounters unfold naturally. The whales decide how close they want to come.”
By the time we return to Urangan Marina I am salt-haired and sun-warmed, carrying the memory of dusk off Sandy Cape and a whale circling in moonlight. Their hard-won comeback makes each encounter a privilege, and reminds us that the richest experiences come when we travel with care.
The writer was hosted by Fraser Coast Tourism.