We gave ourselves a day off before we took a tour to the island, and found ourselves falling for Bundaberg and it's closest beach at Bungara, where we stayed at the Bargara Beach Caracan Park.
This campsite looks empty but it was actually huge with quite a few Ausralians in caravans in the powered zone. More campervans and tents showed up in our section later in the day.
We signed up for the Turtle experience at nearby Mon Repos Turtle Centre that evening with 100 of our closest friends. We had been warned that we could wait up to 6 hours and possibly no turtles would come in to lay eggs, and we were a bit dismayed at the crowd, the lack of seating and the unremitting heat and humidity (we're now in the "true" tropics). But within 1/2 an hour first group 1, and then our group were called to walk down the beach to see a female loggerhead turtle lay her eggs. We had to keep our flashlights and cellphones turned off (this proved very difficult for some millennials) to prevent the turtles from being disoriented. But once she'd laid the first 20 eggs, she was unlikely to be scared away, so the Rangers were able to measure her. Apparently they have poor hearing (on land) so the Rangers were able to talk away as she laid egg after egg. Once she was done and started filling in her nest, it was okay to take pictures.
Stakes are to mark location of the nest
When she was finished she turned and headed back to sea. The best part was when she pitched into the ocean and took off. We were instructed to stand very still when a new turtle came in from the ocean, but that turtle decided to turn back. Each turtle will come back up to four times during the season and lay another 100 eggs.
The rangers will rescue the eggs if they get buried too low down on the beach as the seawater will kill them. They rebury them higher on the beach.
It really was an incredible experience! One of the highlights of this trip.
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