Moby-Dick—strange portents and leviathan obsessions

I’ve been obsessed with whales since I moved to Newcastle, Australia, from Sydney two years ago. The day after moving I walked to Strzelecki Lookout, my favourite place in Newcastle, high above the sea. It was the first day of September—one of those clear Spring days when the wind is cold but the sun is shining. Just off the cliff, in the wide expanse of blue, I spotted a puff of white like a small cloud. If I’d been a whaler I might have cried out: ‘Whale Ho! Thar she blows!’ Instead I laughed with delight; whales do that to people.

As joggers and dog-walkers passed by I said to them, ‘Look, there’s a whale!’ Most smiled politely and kept walking. Newcastle’s coast is a whale superhighway: 33,000 humpback whales migrate up and down the east coast each year. I’d spotted just one, but it felt far from mundane to me. Whales are a kind of magic—wild and wondrous, and joyful at the same time. I stood watch for an hour or more, following the whale with my eyes as it breached.