Humpback whales stun paddleboard champ

Eight-times world paddleboarding champion Jamie Mitchell got more than he bargained for when a humpback whale surfaced within centimetres of his board off the Australia's east coast yesterday.

Mitchell was filming a documentary called Living in Liquid when a pod of whales appeared on the coast near Tweed Heads, at the New South Wales-Queensland border.

"At first it was kind of scary because they are just so big," Mitchell said.

Humpback whales can grow to be 16m long and can weigh up to 36 tonnes.

Mitchell told news.com.au that up to five humpbacks surfaced, and started following him, playing around him for about 10 minutes.

"We were out on the water paddling around and all of a sudden, boom, a whale breached about 100m away from me," he said.

"I thought that was pretty cool and then all of a sudden another whale came up right in front of me.

"At the start it was sort of scary. I got goosebumps and the adrenalin started flowing.

"But then I realised that they were just playing.

"They swam right underneath my board and I thought I'd be in strife if they came up but they had a good sense of where I was."