On to ‘surf’ at Mick’s place – Day 306 – 20 November

After watching a beautiful Loggerhead mother laying her huge clutch of eggs last night (171 eggs) we got into bed quite late so arose this morning equally late as well. Today our Mission Impossible-like challenge meant that we had to get from our campsite to our ‘Couchie’, a guy called Mick living in Brisbane who we were to be Couchsurfing at, a journey of about 4 hours if we did not stop along the way. We were hoping that he would be so kind as to accommodate us for the next couple of nights or so.

Liz checking out the memorial!

Yesterday, during that time when we were lounging about on the beaches, we had discussed the possibility of getting up early today and zipping off down the road to a place called Tin Can Bay for the dolphin feeding there but we were a bit too late for that so settled for a slow steady drive to our intended destination instead. We had not really planned on doing a great deal on our journey today but by the time we reached a place called Gympie we felt that it was high time for a break.

Now the Memorial Park at Gympie!

So we parked up next to the town’s Memorial Park and went for a bit of a wander about to grab ourselves something to eat. We had a quick look down the main street but shops are not really our thing so besides taking a closer look at the ANZAC memorial, we did not hang around particularly long here, opting instead to go on a bit further and have a look at a place called Lake McDonald.

The lake was quite a difficult place to get to, not least because we had to take quite a protracted detour off our intended route because of some major roadworks going on. It seemed to be a great place to go for a wander round the lake but we never actually got round to it! After yet another one of our little picnics we decided just to have a little bit of a lie down, except that after our food our little lie down turned itself into more of a bit of a nap! So when we awoke we had no real time to explore the gardens so off we had to go – doh!

The Famous Lake McDonald – the one we should have taken a wander around – Doh!

The drive to Brisbane was quite a longish one but it was interesting enough as we could see far away in the distance, the Glass Mountains. As we neared Brisbane it was quite a shock to the senses how much we had missed – or rather, not missed – traffic. Even at its busiest the roads over here seem nothing like back home but now we were nearing the city we had an unpleasant reminder of what we had left behind! As it was on the other side of the freeway/motorway, whatever they call it here, it was even busier with people wanting to leave the city, was it something we said?

The trouble with civilisation …. the very uncivilised increase in Traffic

Mick’s place – for some reason I keep wanting to put a ‘Dundee’ after Mick, like the Crocodile Dundee character – anyhow it was quite an easy place for us to find as he lives on quite a main road, across from a metro station too, so a couple of good markers there even for a couple of novice map readers like us! Once there he was as open and friendly as we could have wished for. He introduced us to his wife Mayumi, who was Japanese and his two sons, Trent and Jai. The lads had some mates round and we were soon enough introduced to them too as well as the other couple of Couchsurfers he had staying at his place.

What can I say about our host, well he is the kind of Aussie who is a man’s man but straight away makes you feel right at home. If you want someone who is politically correct and who does not swear or drink, then Mick is not for you and he would probably tell you to F*&k Off as he can be quite uncompromising but he has a heart of gold and I really think he would do anything for anybody as his record on Couchsurfing can attest to. Later on me and his good self had a game of pool which I managed to win so this is when he punched me in the back, possibly causing my back the problems of the next few days … lol! No quite honestly, he is a top bloke who always makes sure you have a beer in your hand and his sons although he gives them plenty of verbal abuse, they are a credit to him too!

Possibly a typical night at Mick’s, beer, laughs and lots of both!

Mick met his wife Mayumi when she became one of the guests he hosted when she was travelling Australia and they fell in love. The more me and Liz chatted to her the more we realised that she had visited loads of places right across the world so it was interesting hearing her stories about the places that she had been too. One of our fellow surfers entertained us all with a bit of singing and ukulele playing – or perhaps it was a baby guitar – then Mick did some impromptu stick playing and ‘Aborigine singing’, although is was possibly a bit more like a whale’s wail in Mick’s case. Mick an’ his Sticks, almost has the ring of a band in the making ….. if it had not been for the sound!! lol. A great night had by all methinks!

 

Bundaberg and a simply Eggsellent evening at Mon Repos – Day 305 – 19 November

It was a decent enough drive through the countryside that took us to Bundaberg, a place that my son had stayed at for a while whilst he was over here in Oz. The town was quite a big one and seemed to be surrounded on all sides by vegetable and fruit farms. As ever we first popped to the local Information Centre to try and get the lowdown on the best beaches round here so we could snorkel and relax on for today was to be a day of some serious chilling, the reason being that tonight we had booked the Turtle Experience at Mon Repos!

Coral Cove – It was much better in real life!

 

So off we went for a bit of a snorkel at a beautiful little place called Coral Cove. This was another of those places which is certainly a sight for sore eyes but where isn’t in Oz. It had all the requisite features, blue skies, aqua seas and golden sands but this was all set off against black volcanic rocks, which seemed to make all of the other features stand out even more. As sometimes happens, the snorkelling turned out to be not too great as there was quite a bit of a swell and we soon found out that as well as looking impressively black, the rocks and the barnacles on them were also quite dangerous to be rubbing up against! A couple of guys on their dinner break seemed to be having better luck than we did or knew the tides a bit better so we left them to it. Now pleasantly ‘exerted’ we felt that we had earned a bit of a rest.

Bargara – you can see why the turtles come round here!

So we drove off to a little place called Bargara which turned out to have it’s own lovely little beach too. Even better was that next to the beach was the entrance to a little lagoon the locals used for swimming and in it the kids were having a great time, laughing swimming and generally messing about, much better than seeing them mesmerised by their phones or their computers. We joined in the fun but at a much more relaxed pace by doing a bit of book reading and we even indulged in a bit of a kip each too. This was of course necessary (lol) as we wanted to be fully recharged for tonight as we had no idea what to expect or how long it would be before we saw a turtle.

Get that damn phone outta my face!

Somewhat refreshed, we cooked a bit of food and then drove down to the Turtle Rookery and viewing centre to eat it in the car park there. Lots of cars were already parked up so we wolfed our food down and in we scarpered. Once inside we were separated into groups and the guides there explained to us that we would wait in these groups to be called up onto the beach where, if we were lucky, we would have the chance to see a female Loggerhead Turtle lay her eggs – fingers crossed eh!

We had only just been put into our group, lucky (?) group two, when we were shouted up as we thought, to go on the beach, things seemed to be looking hopeful. Dash and dammit though – we were only being called up to watch a video about the conservation effort at Mon Repos and how that here they had been particularly successful in helping turtle numbers rise which was great news really. The film done we were called up again and this time we were off outside, surely this had to be the real thing didn’t it?

This was not the ‘business end’ of the turtle!

We followed our guide and strolled along the boardwalk that led to the beach and then as a group, quite a big group at that, we continued along the sands to where another guide was waving us onwards with her torch to where she stood next to some turtle tracks. This was a good indication that a possible mum-to-be had come ashore here. Then, I am not really sure what he needed to be doing but we had to wait for our ranger to ‘set things up’ at the nesting site and then he took us to her to make a semi-circle around the mother’s back whilst she was busy digging her nest into which she would be dropping her clutch.

First was the big egg count – 171 eggs!

Whilst she dug, our guide a guy called Everett, explained a bit more to us about the programme and about the turtles themselves. A couple of things that I should point out at this juncture are that the turtle’s eyesight is as good as ours is out of the water, something which I did not expect and this was why we had to stay behind her outside her field of vision. If she did catch wind of us she might be ‘spooked’ and perhaps abandon her egg laying for another night! This also meant that no cameras or lights could be used at this point too, so all there was was a single light pointing down into the hole that the turtle had made thus far.

My wife, a very willing volunteer egg-mover!

The mother then proceeded to lay her eggs and she really went at it laying 171 eggs to be precise. When turtles have laid between about 15 to 20 eggs they enter a ‘trance like state’, therefore after this number we were allowed to quietly walk round the mother and could even take photos and films which was frankly quite amazing. Then as she was nearing the end of her egg laying we once again switched the lights off and let her be whilst she covered her eggs. The guide then proceeded to inform us that our mother had unfortunately buried her eggs a bit too close to the high tide mark so the eggs would need relocating just a bit higher up. So the ranger’s helper was starting to dig a new nest site whist our mother was filling and covering hers over, for us to soon be uncovering!

Our eggs in their new home! Goodbye old friends!

Her work finished she lumbered her way back towards the sea and it may have been partly due to her size but the egg laying had taken a lot of her strength, you could see that she was absolutely shattered and seemed to just be using willpower alone to make her way back to the water. Once she was back in the sea safely and on her way further out we were asked if we would like to help with the relocating of the eggs and we were most enthusiastic volunteers. The ranger passed us the eggs from the turtle’s hole and we took them up to the new nesting site, easy enough but really good fun and we could take snaps too of our little deliveries as it were. This was a most excellent way to round the night off so, job done we wandered off back to the centre to find ourselves the recipient of a certificate each. Not really sure what we had done to deserve such an accolade as it was the mother turtle who had really been doing all of the work, maybe it was just because we had the biggest smiles! And as we received our awards, group three was only just heading out so God knows what time they would be finished, so once again we had been quite lucky as we still had quite a drive before us to get to our next port of call.

It was not too far but it was dark and in the sticks here dark is very dark indeed, so much so we almost drove past our stopping place. One quick (or to be more accurate, one slowish) U-eey though and we were soon parked up and able to get our heads down but we both definitely went to sleep with smiles on our faces, it had simply been an unforgettable evening.