We left our awesome accommodation with a bit of a heavy heart because it was so nice, but also happy because today was going to be a special day. A few nights ago we had managed to secure our tickets to the night encounter tour at the Mon Repos Turtle Center.
But first we had a 3.5 hour drive between our Airbnbs, so we grabbed some yummy breakfast at a Jimmy Foxx, which was really nice. Only downside is that they used plastic cups for the smoothies… ah well, you can’t have it all I guess. Breakfast was super delicious though!
Fully charged up we set off and drove straight through to our Airbnb near Bundaberg. We were greeted by the friendliest Airbnb host yet, who used to be a German baker and promised us good old German quality bread for breakfast the next day! Yum!
Manja felt right at home in the balcony hammock!
Skipping lunch, but somewhat early for dinner, we decided to visit a local beach and have some fish and chips on the beach. Seemed like a great concept, except that today it was blowing a gale. We took shelter at a picnic area nearby, and then went for a walk along Eliott head beach.
Rather than risk being late for our night walk, we decided to walk around the Mon Repos nature reserve for a bit before our tour. We didn’t see turtles, but we did spot a Kookaburra!
It wasn’t that long before it was time to head over to the Turtle center for our night walk and information session. I can not recommend the night tour highly enough, it really was awesome. No guarantee to see a turtle, we were presented with plenty of information about turtles while we waited. Meanwhile rangers patrolled the beaches and the visitors were split into groups of about 10, in order of booking. Group 1 would get to see the first turtle sighted, group 2 the second etc. etc. We were lucky enough to have been in group 1!
Kudos to Manja for booking us in so early!
We watched and waited, then suddenly around 10pm we got a call that group 1 had to assemble on the easterly gate. We were going to watch a loggerhead turtle lay her eggs on the beach! Yay!!!
Most of the time was completely “lights out” which the rangers definitely ensured really well. At a few points, though, we were allowed to take photos because the turtle would not care. Here is some videos of people taking photos of turtles paparazzi-style!
And here is some photos of the whole experience, including one of me being very very proud to carry turtle eggs!
As the rangers thought she laid a bit close to the waters edge, we also go to help carry the eggs into a manmade replica nest – into which the eggs were laid in the same order. It was an absolutely and turtley awesome night!
The video below is of the eggs leaving the nest in the safe hands of an expert volunteer.
We got back a bit before 1am and dropped into bed.
Loved the story🤗 had problems to see much on the pictures/ videos😐
I know… They are a bit dark unfortunately.