Cavorting with dolphins… and a bush tucker treat
Kathy Lette swims with dolphins – and hangs out with koalas – as she works up an appetite for a foodie odyssey in Victoria
Are there any sharks?’ I asked, as nonchalantly as an imminent cardiac arrest would allow. ‘Only one way to find out,’ the laconic Aussie captain grinned, just before he gave me a gentle nudge off the back of the boat and into Victoria’s Port Phillip Bay.
I grabbed hold of the knotted rope trailing behind the motor launch and dangled there like live bait, as the boat bumped through the choppy water.
As if I weren’t in enough of a flap, it was then I saw the fin slicing through the waves. Hmmm, did my travel insurance cover gaping chest wounds, I thought, as the fin torpedoed towards me.
I’d just emitted a scream to rival the woman in the shower scene from Psycho when, at the last moment, the huge creature leapt out of the sea… And it was then I saw the reassuring, toothy grin of a bottle-nosed dolphin. Can animals smirk? Because I’m sure I saw it chuckling snidely.
‘Look down!’ the skipper bellowed from the back of the boat. I shoved my goggled head under the water and gasped. A whole pod of dolphins was turning and churning and zooming around me. By the time the skipper hauled me back on deck,