Whale Rock - North Stradbroke Island (Queensland, Australia)

(excerpt from http://bit.ly/afvSLK)

Whale Rock is located on the North Gorge walk situated at the north eastern tip of Point Lookout.

Legend says that many years ago an aboriginal woman demented and senile, was abandoned by her people to a small rocky island at Point Lookout because she was very hard to control. When the people returned to the headland, they could not find the woman but her wailing cry could be heard as she called to her people. The headland where she was abandoned was then called Whale Rock by the Aboriginal people who could hear her wailing cries in the wind.

At the rocky point was a hole in the rocks where the water had gradually forced its way through the rock creating a water spout on high tide. As time went by, the point has become known as the The Blowhole as it resembled a whale breathing and with the arrival of tourists, the name changed to Whale Rock. The visitors not knowing the Aboriginal story thought that the rock must have been named after the whales which pass close by the headland from June to November.
Watch the whales as they travel to and from Hervey Bay each year, and to wonder at the power of the sea when the south easterly swell causes the blow hole to erupt.

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• whale
• rock
• wailing
• queensland
• australia
• stradbroke
• island
• tropical
• cliffs