Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Up Close & Personal with a Turtle
Moments
The egg in my hand is warm, soft, and about the size of a Ping-Pong
ball. At our feet, a giant green turtle sighs deeply as she lays a clutch
of about 120 eggs in a pear-shaped chamber dug from the sand. A
large tear rolls from her eye. In the distance the wedge-tailed shear-
waters call eerily to each other, backed by the sound of the ocean.
The egg-laying ritual of the turtles is central to a trip to Heron Island
in the summer months. At night and in the early morning, small
groups of people gather on the beaches to witness the turtles lumber
up the beach, dig a hole in the sand, and lay their eggs. (The turtles
are not easily disturbed, and you can get very close.) Every night dur-
ing the season, volunteer guides from the University of Queensland
research station based on the island are on hand; you can watch and
ask questions as the researchers tag and measure the turtles before
they return to the water. The laying season runs December through
February, and only one in 5,000 hatchlings will live to return in about
50 years to lay their own eggs.
Another good place to watch the turtles nesting is at Mon Repos
Beach, outside Bundaberg. Mon Repos Conservation Park is one of the
two largest loggerhead-turtle rookeries in the South Pacific. The visi-
tor center by the beach has a great display on the turtle life cycle and
shows films at approximately 7:30pm each night in summer. Visitors
can turn up anytime after 7pm; the action goes on all night, sometimes
until as late as 6am. Nesting happens around high tide; hatching usu-
ally occurs between 8pm and midnight. Try to get there early to join
the first group of 70 people, the maximum allowed at one laying or
hatching. Take a flashlight if you can.
The
Mon Repos Turtle Rookery
(
&
07/4159 1652
for the visitor
center) is 14km (8
3
⁄
4
miles) east of Bundaberg's town center. Follow
Bourbong Street out of town toward Burnett Heads as it becomes
Bundaberg-Bargara Road. Take the Port Road to the left and look for
the Mon Repos signs to the right. Admission to the visitor center is free
April through November (9am-4pm), but when the turtles start nesting,
you pay A$5 (US$3.25) for adults, A$2 (US$1.30) for children. Novem-
ber through March, the center is open daily from 7pm until midnight.
Avis
(
&
07/4152 1877),
Budget
(
&
07/4153 1600),
Hertz
(
&
07/4155
2403), and
Thrifty
(
&
07/4151 6222) all have offices in Bundaberg.
VISITOR INFORMATION
The
Bundaberg Region Visitor Centre
is at
271 Bourbong St. at Mulgrave Street, Bundaberg, QLD 4670 (
&
1800/308
888
in Australia, or 07/4153 8888; www.bundabergregion.info). It's open daily
from 9am to 5pm.
WHAT TO SEE & DO
The best shore diving in Queensland is in
Bundaberg's Woongarra Marine
Park.
It has soft and hard corals, urchins, rays, sea snakes, and 60 fish species,
plus a World War II Beaufort bomber wreck. There are several scuba operators.
