Nala – Giant Humpback Whale

A named individual whale is the detail that makes this work. Humpbacks are identified by the underside pattern of the tail fluke, which is unique to each animal, and the whales that pass through Hervey Bay are catalogued and recognised across seasons. Nala was one of them. Commemorating a specific whale rather than the species is the same instinct as Rambo the Goulburn merino – a portrait, not a symbol.

Hervey Bay's relationship with humpbacks is unusual. The bay is a resting stop rather than a migration corridor, sheltered water where mothers and calves pause on the southward journey, and the whales there behave differently from whales passing anywhere else on the coast. The town declared itself a whale heritage site on that basis.

Ironbark in the material list is a good decision. It is a dense, dark, heavy Queensland hardwood, and using it for a breaching whale gives the piece a mass that steel alone would not.

The name of whoever built it go undocumented.