Driving south away from Seventeen Seventy we arrived into Australia’s Turtle hatching capital, Bundaberg. While Bundy is more famously known for its unforgivingly harsh pirate juices, it has the largest nesting of marine turtles on Australia’s East Coast. The name Bundaberg derived from the term ‘Bunda’ which is a moiety name that denotes an important man, used by the local Taribelang people of the Kabi nation. The suffix ‘berg’ is an old English word to describe an old town. Bundaberg was founded in 1867 as an agricultural and port town, it thrives in growing, refining and exporting sugar. Around the sugar industry, the town does well with its Rum exports and commercial fruit and vegetable growing.
Bundaberg or 'Bundy' to its mates famous for cane fields, sugar and rum certainly has reminded us that we are travelling in summer during the wet season. The rain hasn't stopped since we left Seventeen Seventy, approximately 120 kilometres north of Bundaberg. Thankfully due to the short number of kms we were able to take our time driving through the rain with Florence. Earlier on in our travellers we lost the roof cap off one of the skylights. Shovel used his deadly tradie skills to fix a piece of perspex onto the open hole in the roof and it's held out through all this rain. Top work Shovel!
In the evening we took a trip out to Mon Repos Turtle Conservation Centre, and learnt more about the life of a sea turtle. These animals are amazing, once hatched out of an egg 60 Centimetres into the sand, they climb there way out and find their way straight into the ocean and journey as far as South America and back, which could take them as long as 15 years. The largest recorded lifespan has known to be as long as 67 years old, while on average they weigh in at 130 kilograms can get up to 450 kilograms. While life sounds long and prosperous for sea turtles, their survival rate is 1 in 1000 during their early lives. Being vulnerable to many predators on land and sea including human activities, the turtle has become an endangered species. After a lengthy wait, we were taken out onto Mon Repos beach to witness the turtle hatchlings’ first walk into life. It was a beautiful night, although windy and raining, the beach had a magical feel to it, peaceful waves washing into the sand and the glow of night over the horizon, ready to welcome the turtles to the ocean. The ranger pulled a bag off the entrance to a nest, the already hatched juvenile turtles surfaced themselves to the beach, they were all grouped up and shown around to everyone for photos, not really what nature intends, but keeps the tourists happy. Then the turtles were let off into the wild, to enter the waters and take on life. Seeing the loggerhead turtles off into the ocean was most certainly a magical experience, while some things were done to please the tourist, it felt like a very special place to be.
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The JourneyChoose Curiosity The Catalogue
November 2023
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