Where to Swim with Whales in New South Wales
Type swim with whales into Google from Sydney and most of what comes back is about somewhere else. That is not the search engine being unhelpful. It is the honest answer, and it is worth knowing before you plan a trip around it.
We are out through the heads most days of the whale season, and this is one of the questions we get asked most on the deck. So here is the straight version. You cannot get in the water with a humpback off Sydney. You can do it a couple of hours down the coast, and it is run by our own sister brand.
Watching whales and swimming with them are two different activities, and they are treated differently. An in-water whale swim in New South Wales needs its own permit. We do not hold one, so what we run out of Darling Harbour is a viewing cruise. You watch from the decks of Port Venture, and you stay dry.
Jervis Bay Wild holds the permit for it. They run the swim out of Huskisson, which makes Jervis Bay the nearest place to Sydney where you can actually do this.
This one is Jervis Bay Wild, our Jervis Bay sister brand, departing Huskisson.
The boat heads out along the South Coast in search of migrating humpbacks. When the crew see whale behaviour and conditions that suit it, guests may have the opportunity to enter the water and watch these animals from a respectful distance. There is nothing staged about it. You are a visitor in open water, on the whale’s terms.
There are three packages, including one for guests who would rather stay on the boat for the whole trip and still be there for it. That last option matters more than it sounds, because it means a group with mixed confidence in the water can go out together.
Whales are not the only thing out there either. Dolphins, seals and plenty of other marine life use that stretch of coast, so the trip has a lot going for it even on a quiet day.
Bookings open soon. Their Swim with Whales page has the packages and the detail, and they have also written up what swimming with humpbacks actually involves if you want to read further before you commit to a drive.
This is the part to be clear-eyed about. These are wild animals in open ocean, and nobody puts them on a schedule. Guests enter the water only when the whales behave in a way that allows it and the conditions are right. Some trips that happens. Some trips it does not.
That is the same reason we never guarantee a whale sighting on our own cruises either. Wild animals do not take bookings.
Jervis Bay Wild is at 15 Field Street, Huskisson, which is roughly two and a half to three hours south of Sydney depending on when you leave and what the Princes Highway is doing. It is a comfortable day trip and a much better weekend.
Worth saying plainly, because visitors mix these up constantly: that is a completely different departure point to ours. We leave from King Street Wharf 6 at Darling Harbour, and if you are booking with us the departure information page has the wharf, the transport and the parking. There is a Wharf 6 at Circular Quay too, and it is not ours.
The humpbacks that Jervis Bay Wild swims with are the same population that passes Sydney. They run north to breed and back south again between May and November, and we go out and meet them on the way through. We have written more about when and where the whales show up off Sydney if you are working out timing.
So if what you really want is to be near a humpback this week rather than in the water with one next season, that is a much shorter trip. Port Venture is built stable and spacious, with five viewing levels, so wherever a whale comes up you have a clear line of sight. On a good day a whale surfaces close enough that nobody on board says anything at all for a moment.
It is a question with a real answer, it is just not a Sydney answer. The in-water experience runs at Jervis Bay with Jervis Bay Wild, bookings open soon, and it is worth the drive if getting in the water is the whole point for you.
If it is the whales you are after rather than the swim, you can book a whale watching cruise online for any date in the season. If you would rather stay inside the heads, book the Sydney Harbour sightseeing cruise online instead. Either way you are leaving from King Street Wharf 6 aboard Port Venture.
And if whales are not spotted on your first cruise with us, you can rebook free within 5 days of your original trip.