South Australian odyssey

Crumbling along the edge of the Nullarbor’s vast, treeless plains, the Bunda Cliffs dare me to the edge, beckoning the thrillseeker in me to stand 80 vertigo-inducing metres above a pounding sea. Far below, I spot a solitary, spy-hopping humpback whale, watching this watcher with one enormous, all-seeing eye.

I take its curiosity as a good omen. Like this whale, lured by the warmth of the Leeuwin Current to Australia’s most important marine sanctuary, I’m going east to Head of Bight to witness a great annual gathering of whales.

Every winter, more than 100 endangered southern right whales monopolise the high seas to socialise, joined by frolicking humpbacks and mesmerising onlookers with their antics. The size of buses, right whales were so named because they were deemed the “right” whales to hunt: slow moving close to shore and, conveniently for whalers, staying afloat when dead to offer up a bounty of blubber and oil.

It’s no surprise, then, that Australian whalers