Qualla: Head of the Bight https://qualla.com/head-of-the-bight en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:26 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/m/k/head-of-the-bight-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Head of the Bight https://qualla.com/head-of-the-bight Head of the Bight: Introduction https://qualla.com/head-of-the-bight/ Photo credit Holly Randell, CC BY-SA 4.0. Stand on the boardwalk at the head of the Bight in July and you hear them before you pick them out: a deep, wet exhalation rolling up the cliff face, then the slow black curve of a mother whale breaking the surface with her calf alongside. This is the northernmost reach of the Great Australian Bight, the point where the long curve of Australia's southern coast bends back on itself, and it is one of only two places on the entire south coast of the continent where southern right whales come to give birth. The other lies far to the west, off Western Australia's Fitzgerald River National Park. Of the two, this is where the whales come closest of all – close enough that you look down on them rather than out toward them.

Read more: Head of the Bight on Qualla

Image: Holly Randell | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/m/k/head-of-the-bight-wp/qfmk-head-of-the-bight-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Head of the Bight: Country of the Whale People https://qualla.com/head-of-the-bight/ Photo credit Holly Randell, CC BY-SA 4.0. Long before whaling fleets or marine parks, this coast belonged to the Mirning, and it belongs to them still. For the Mirning, the whale is no mere visitor to be watched from a railing; it is a totem and an ancestor, woven into a Dreaming that binds the people to the sea and to t...

Read more: Head of the Bight on Qualla

Image: Holly Randell | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/m/k/head-of-the-bight-wp/qfmk-head-of-the-bight-country-of-the-whale-people.mp3 0:06 2 full Head of the Bight: Where Cliffs Meet the Calving Ground https://qualla.com/head-of-the-bight/ Photo credit Holly Randell, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Bunda Cliffs that frame the bay are made of pale Wilson Bluff limestone, an ancient seabed laid down as Australia first pulled away from Antarctica, and they form part of the longest unbroken line of sea cliffs on Earth. Their height – sixty to a hundred and twenty metres of ...

Read more: Head of the Bight on Qualla

Image: Holly Randell | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/m/k/head-of-the-bight-wp/qfmk-head-of-the-bight-where-cliffs-meet-the-calving-ground.mp3 0:06 3 full Head of the Bight: The Long Way Home https://qualla.com/head-of-the-bight/ Photo credit Holly Randell, CC BY-SA 4.0. The whales that fill this bay each winter have come an enormous distance to do it. Southern right whales spend their summers in the cold, krill-rich seas near Antarctica, gorging to build the blubber that will sustain them through the breeding season. Then, as the southern winter...

Read more: Head of the Bight on Qualla

Image: Holly Randell | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/m/k/head-of-the-bight-wp/qfmk-head-of-the-bight-the-long-way-home.mp3 0:06 4 full Head of the Bight: A Bay That Watches Back https://qualla.com/head-of-the-bight/ Photo credit Holly Randell, CC BY-SA 4.0. Most of the Great Australian Bight is open, exposed, hostile to anything that floats. The head of the Bight is the exception: a pocket of calmer, marginally warmer water at the top of the curve, sheltered just enough that a whale can rest and a newborn can find its strength. That...

Read more: Head of the Bight on Qualla

Image: Holly Randell | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/m/k/head-of-the-bight-wp/qfmk-head-of-the-bight-a-bay-that-watches-back.mp3 0:06 5 full