Our Wicked Walkabout

We left Marlborough, and Ernie and Bert and continued our trek south.

It was just a day of travel… no scenic stops, no great vistas… just Sugar Cane, and Cows.

We passed through the city of Rockhampton, the cattle city of Queensland. And it was…

We landed in Bundaberg, and camping in its even smaller suburbs, Bargara. A small sugar community on the beach.

We had never heard of it, a couple we met in Airlie Beach told us about it. We had not intended to stop here….But it’s home to two very cool things, Bundaburg Rum, and Mon Repos, the turtle nesting grounds.

The next morning was Sunday… so off we headed to the local church.

The service was well attended, and it was nice to celebrate the beginning of advent with them.

From church, we headed over to the Rum Distillery. another holy place!

The rum museum and tour was very interesting. Because they had two rather devastating fires (1907 and 1936) and distilleries, and alcohol fumes are flammable, we were unable to bring any potential ignition sources on the tour. This included phones, and cameras. so no pic inside.

The tour ended with a “free sample” of two types of rum… your choice. Rick tried the Spiced and classic, I selected the coffee chocolate and Salted caramel.. yum

It was then back to our camp ground for a nap… drinking two shots of rum at noon have tendency to do that!

That, and our next activity could be very late.

At 6:00 pm, we headed over to Mon Repos, the turtle nesting beach. We had a guided tour with a park ranger.

The only challenge, nesting turtles are wild, and don’t come when the tickets are sold.

The first turtle arrived on the beach at about 6:40, the second about 10 minutes later!

We were in group three.

So we waited…

At around 7:30, our turtle arrived. So off we headed.

Again, camera’s were not allowed. The light will disturb the turtles and they can get stressed and not nest.

A little walk down the beach, in the dark! We got to our turtle. And while she began her digging, the ranger filled our minds with many turtle facts.

We slowly headed over to where she was digging.

Unfortunately, after about 10 minutes, she decided that hole was no good.. and it was not, the ranger told us they would likely have re-nested the eggs, as that hole was below the storm surge edge.

She headed to another spot. And started again.

Unfortunately, she did not like that spot either… so went to get a third. This was about 40 minutes in…close to 9:20

Lucky for us, just down the beach another turtle was just starting laying her eggs so we went to watch her.

Once about 20 eggs are laid, the turtle gets into the zone, and we can take pictures.

It was a once in a lifetime experience… which I will never forget!