Bundaberg, Bargara and Mon Repos

We wanted to visit the beach at Mon Repos to see the baby turtles hatch, so drove to Bundaberg to book it up. Unfortunately turtle watching seems to be very popular and all Saturday night's viewings were booked up. Made the decision to stay an extra night and booked virtually the last tickets for Sunday night.

Rather than stay in Bundaberg itself, we drove to the seaside resort of Bargara and checked into a motel. Spent a nice couple of days exploring the town and beach. Also enjoyed an afternoon barbie by the motel pool.

Arrived at Mon Repos beach at around 6.30pm. Unfortunately, being one of the last to book meant that we were in the last group of people waiting to go down to the beach that night. Rangers take groups of about 60 at a time as soon as there was some activity on the beach. 

Group 1 were called at around 7.15 and group 2 at 7.45, so were all getting quite excited and optimistic that we would soon be down there too. Unfortunately, group 3 only got their call at 9.15 and by then we were starting to feel that it was going to be a long night. However, some people had obviously decided not to wait, so we were bumped up to group 4 and were called surprisingly soon after group 3. Off we all trudged to the beach. It was a pitch black, moonless night. The only light being the torch held by the guide. 

Reached the beach and met our ranger, Joe, who said he was positioned at a nest which had already hatched earlier that night, and had been missed. Joe was convinced that there were turtles still in the nest which hadn't yet made their way to the sea. He had to dig, to help the escape, and very soon came across a tiny little hatchling. Andy and I named her Tululah! 

Apparently the sex of a turtle is determined by the temperature of the sand into which the eggs are laid. Sand at Mon Repos is at about 31 degrees and so the majority of the turtles hatched there are female. Cooler areas with sand at around 25 degrees will produce mainly males.

Anyway, despite much digging, Joe didn't find any more turtles, despite finding nearly 100 empty egg shells! So Andy and I and the rest of the group of 60 formed a guard of honour on the beach and watched Tululah make her way to the sea. Good luck Tululah, you will need it to become the one in  one thousand hatchlings who makes it to maturity!

Walked back in the dark to the turtle centre, wondering, it must be said, if we would have been better waiting to go with our own group 5 instead of being bumped up. Maybe they had had more luck? However, on arriving back at base, we found the rest if group 5 still waiting to be called, and it was now 10.45pm. It must just have been a quiet night for turtles. We were lucky to have at least seen Tululah!

Long drive tomorrow. Me have to start to make inroads into the Kms between here and Cairns.