Road Trip to Bundaberg

Apparently camping in a van in Tasmania wasn’t enough, because we decided to do more camping once we got back to the mainland, this time in a town about three hours north of Peregian Beach called Bundaberg. Although it was quite warm and I did end up having to abandon the tent and sleep in the car on the second night, it was a good short trip complete with turtle hatchings, a soda factory and some other random excursions.

Mon Repos Turtle Sanctuary

Bundaberg is known for being one of the prime locations where turtles will nest their eggs on the beaches from November to March. The Mon Repos Turtle Conservation Center has done a great job of building up a system in which people can go and observe the laying and hatching of these eggs, while keeping things safe for the turtles. Because we went in March, we were lucky enough to see the hatchings of the eggs, although I hear watching the laying of the eggs is a very cool experience as well. Every night, the center has probably 200 or so people sign up to be taken out to the beach and hope that they get to see some good action. The people are split up into groups and when your group number is called (based on when action has been spotted on the beach), that’s when the fun begins. Of course, you are going on nature’s schedule so this could be any time from 6:30pm to 2:00am!

Fortunately for us, we were in Group 2 and were called down around 7:00pm. Our guide, who clearly didn’t love tourists, took us down to our spot on the sand where we would then see 14 hatchlings come out of the sand. Despite 14 being actually quite a low number, (other groups on that same night saw more than a hundred hatchlings!) it was still amazing to see these tiny little guys emerge from the sand and instantly start to make their way to the water! The hatchlings use what is called a ‘natural light horizon’ to guide them to the water which can be affected by sources of artificial light. Therefore, the guide was very strict on when we could use cameras and flashlights because it causes disorientation, so they had to pen the babies up while they did their talking and then brought a couple turtles around for us to be able to take some pictures. Otherwise, no photos were allowed throughout the process because it would throw off their migration to the ocean.

Some interesting turtle facts:

• The temperature of the sand determines the sex of the turtle. For males to be produced, the sand must be under 29 degrees Celsius. Because of rising temperatures (climate change is real people!), this has led to a lower production of males which further threatens the species. In the video I have posted below, you can hear the guide talk a little more about the sex of the turtles.
• Only 1 in 1000 turtles will survive to adulthood. Statistically, all of the turtles we saw will likely end up as food for another animal.
• When the turtles are making their way from their nest to the ocean they are imprinting their location on the earth’s magnetic field so that when the time comes for them to make their own nests, they will return to this exact location to do so.
• Once they make it from their nest into the ocean, they will swim for the next 48 hours straight out into the water as far as they can go to get them out of the predator ‘danger zone’. They will then stop and rest before continuing on. Eventually they will make it to the Eastern Australian Current (Finding Nemo anyone?), which will take them wherever their little hearts want to go. Some of them even end up all the way over in South America! (And still make it back to this spot to lay eggs! Crazy!)

Overall, even though it would have been preferred to see 100 hatchlings, this turned out to be an awesome experience! It really makes me appreciate the three turtles I saw on the Great Barrier Reef even more, knowing how slim chances of survival are and how at risk sea turtles are in general.

Bundaberg Barrel

Bundaberg is known for producing two popular beverage companies, the Bundaberg Rum Distillery and the Bundaberg Barrel, where they produce soda that comes in an iconic bottle. Julie had told me that the rum was gross, so we decided to skip out on touring that factory and instead went the the soda factory. We couldn’t go into the place where they actually produced the soda, but they had a museum that was really well done which included replicas of most of the machines used for production and had real-time cameras showing what was going on in the factory. The tour also included a taste test of their 12 flavors of soda and then a 6 pack of your favorites to take home with you. Narrowing it down to just six was tough because most of them were really good!

Other Bundy Activities