The Okuda Family

We were only in Bargara for the turtles and there isn’t much else going on there.  We had breakfast in Bundaberg and headed back south toward Brisbane.

During our last trip to Queensland we visited the Tangalooma Resort on Moreton Island and really enjoyed it.  However, we felt that our time there was a bit too short.  This time we returned for a longer stay.

Remember that big storm I mentioned in Brisbane?  Well, it seems that it was hanging around and made our trip to Moreton Island interesting.  Moreton Island is due east of Brisbane and the wind usually blows west, so the west side of Moreton Island is usually calm.  Not so that day.  The wind was at our back the entire trip, which would have been fine if not for the unprotected dock on the west side of the island.  The waves had plenty of time to build across the channel and slam into the dock and boat.  Getting off the boat was a ride.

Fortunately, the weather improved the next morning and was good for the rest of our stay.

We spent a lot of time on the beach.  It is good for Matthew to get out and stretch his plunger peg leg.

We made sand castles down by the wrecks.

That’s no moon… it’s a big nerd… behind the camera.

I went snorkelling at the wrecks down the beach from the hotel.  There was a snorkel tour that arrived by boat while I was there, and I tried to avoid them, but I think I confused the tour guides as their head count kept changing. 

It is a bit eerie swimming around the wrecks.  The water was a bit murky so it is hard to see into the depths.  Fun to sneak up on sea birds though.

Creatures of habit, we did the sand tobogganing last time, and we did it again this time.

It is still exciting to hurl yourself down a sand dune on a plank of wood.

Moreton Island is a sand island and, as a sand island, has a lot of sand.  There is a big open dune not far from the Tangalooma Resort.  They drive us over there, give us a sheet of wood, and send us up the hill.  It is a bit of a climb, and doing it in sand does not make it easier.

Matthew was allowed to go down on his own this trip.  The last time we did this he was six and went down on my back.

And, of course, we cannot forget the wild dolphin feeding.  That is one of the major draws of the Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort.  A local pod are fed a few fish by guests of the resort each night.  They feed each one a measured, and relatively small, amount of food so as not to mess with their normal hunting behaviour.  I suppose that could leave them hungry while surrounded by fingers and toes…

The family of dolphins is constantly changing.  Some dolphins stop coming and new ones appear every year.  One calf was hanging out with the group that we saw, though it did not come to the beach for fish.

Moreton Island was our last stop in Australia.  After leaving the island we headed to the airport for our return flight home.

We spent another night in Caloundra after a long day at the zoo so that we could head out toward Mon Repos in the morning.

Our first stop was the Eumundi Market, one of the largest markets in Queensland and significantly larger than Eumundi itself.  We had lunch at Kadek’s Kitchen, though she was nowhere to be found.  There was some Indonesian dude behind the counter who answered to the name.  Imposter!

We then headed north to Bargara to see the nesting turtles at Mon Repos.  When we arrived we drove around for a while looking for any sort of vacancy but everything was full.  We eventually found a two bedroom condo, but the manager was only willing to rent it to us for one night as long as we agreed to not use the second washroom.  Fair enough.

Mon Repos, as you may remember from past adventures, is a turtle conservation park and, more specifically, a turtle rookery with the largest concentration of marine nesting turtles on the east coast of Australia. 

There is also other wildlife to be found.

In the evenings Mon Repos has controlled access to the beach where small groups of people are taken out to watch turtles either nesting or hatching.  This is to keep the disturbance to a minimum and is particularly important when the turtles are nesting as they are easily scared.  During our last visit we witnessed turtles emerging from their nests, as we were there later in the season.  This time we arrived early in the season and witnessed one nesting.

We didn’t have to wait as long this time for action and were quickly shuttled out to the beach when a turtle made its way up the beach.  Turtles have poor peripheral vision as, I guess, they can’t move their heads around too much, so while she was digging the nest we could sneak up behind her and wait without spooking her.  Once they start laying the eggs there is apparently nothing that will distract them from their task.

Very cool.

After she finished laying her eggs she covered in the hole, took forever spreading the sand around, and returned to the ocean to possibly come back in a few weeks to lay more.  The conservation workers then start their work and dig up the nest to count the eggs for their records.  I understand that they would normally return them to the same hole, but they felt that it was a bit too low down the beach and would be safer further up, so they dug a new hole of the same depth and width and we moved the eggs.

Yes, that’s right, I said that we moved the eggs.  I guess the fastest way to move 100+ eggs up the beach is to give a few to each person

We all took some of the eggs from the original nest and delivered them to the new nest.

This is the new nest just before being filed in.  We left once the nest was all filled in and we were escorted back to the visitor centre.  Awesome.