Tourists encounter a sleeping whale and it's amazing

Holidaymakers in north Queensland were on their way to the Great Barrier Reef when they saw something bulging out of the water off Mission Beach.

As their boat navigated choppy conditions, the Aussies came over a wave and found themselves confronted by a whales huge tail sticking straight out of the water.

"It looks like a humpback with its tail up in the air, playing or something. Not sure what he's up to but he's showing us his tail," surprised skipper Bryce Murtagh says in the video above.

As they got a little closer, they realised it was in fact a huge 30-tonne humpback with a massive four-metre-wide tail and it wasn't playing but rather taking a much deserved nap.

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Little do many people know, whales actually sleep vertically, a strange but very interesting fact about the massive and mysterious mammals.

The tourists were very lucky to come across the sleepy whale, who had been migrating north from the Antarctic waters and had most likely travelled around 10,000 kilometres.

Watch the video above to see the rare sight of a humpback whale sleeping vertically, it's amazing!

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