Marc & Nora ROUND THE WORLD 2005/2006 - Join us!

Back in Hervey bay we packed our stuff and headed upto Bundaberg stopping on the way at tin can bay which apparently is where 'the dolphins come to play'. But of course just not at this time on this day....lets go! It wasn't really Bundaberg (the home of Australias famous sugarcane plantations and Rum distillary) that we were coming here to see but the tiny little area called 'Mon Repos'. This is Australias most succesful and most populated area for nesting turtles. After our torturous experience in Exmouth you may wonder why we would come here to do it again. Well what we came here to see was the tiny little turtle hatchlings brake free from there nests and scramble down to the beach to beging their very long life travelling the worlds oceans. Anyway this was all organised here and in fact you are required to buy tickets in order to get access to the beaches at night for your guided tour of the nest sights. In short 360 impatient tourists in a small space waiting for one of natures wonders to occur is never going to run smoothly. Divided into groups of approx. 30 people we just sat and waited until one of the many volunteers roaming the beach radioed through that there was 'activity' on the beach.......FIVE.....yes that was FIVE hours later our group was ready to go. But because most people had bailed out by this time (almost midnight) they just piled most of the remaining people into one group. We were led by the ranger along the beach towards the nesting site and strictly told NOT to move ahead of her as she was on the look out for any turtles. A few hundred metres down the beach the silence was broken by Nora screaming "STOPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!". We had unknowingly just walked over a group of tiny hatchlings who were struggling to make their way down the beach to the sea. Ranger missed them but the sharp eyed Austrian spotted them! Eventually the group came to a standstill as the the ranger attempted to ensure that we hadn't flattened too many....what a disaster! We reached the nest which we had set out to see and got to stroke the cute little things before watching them run, crawl, wriggle and tumble their way down to the sea (They instinctivly head for the lowest light on the horizon - The moon). It really is an amazing thing to experience just knowing that only 1 in 1000 of these poor little things will make it until adulthood and that any female that does make it til 30 years of age will come back to this very same beach in order to mate and lay her own eggs.....the guy turtles never set flipper on land again! Not forgetting that these hatchlings travel the world's seas catching rides on the ocean currents (you have all seen "finding nemo" have't you?). After tramping over a few more turtles in the dark on the way back to the visitor centre I went to crash in the back of the van as Nora decided to wait just in case she got to see a nesting turtle. Whilst waiting she got talking to a couple of Aussie girls, Katrina and Eleanor, who were on a 3 week road trip North. No real plans were made but they agreed that they would probably meet up again along the way. We didnt know at this stage that those 2 crazy aussies (Kat is from New South Wales and Eleonore is from Tasmania) will be our travel companions for the next few weeks....