We were woken at dawn by the light streaming through the curtains, so coffee is our first essential stop (see our other blog for full coffee details!).

After imbibing our caffeine fuel, we drive to the Dreamtime Cultural Centre to join their 10:30am tour. Our tour guide shows us some examples of old Aboriginal art - using their hands, feet and fingers as stencils around which they blow a red ochre mixture. He then plays us his didgeridoo (very impressive) and tells us a little about the culture surrounding it; that it's a male virility symbol, can symbolise coming of age, traditionally only played by men. He started learning the didgeridoo techniques at 6, and played at his first family ceremony at 14. Eight years of learning before he was allowed to perform!

Next we try our hand at throwing a boomerang. Foxy is very good! All that cricket practice coming to the fore. Bailhache is rubbish. Never one for sports, me...

Our next guide, Grace is a Torres Strait islander and tells us about the Torres Strait islands. She's very enthusiastic about her home; just as I would be about Jersey!

Fun drive to Emu Park for me, where we saw the Singing Ship, a monument to Captain Cook in commemoration of his discovery of that bay in 1770. A time capsule from 1970(?) is buried there, to be opened in 2070. The monument itself represents the mast and sail of his ship, The Endeavour, and organ pipes concealed in the "rigging" create an eerie music from the sea breeze.

After a quick sandwich lunch (sandwiches are great. It's been a while) we depart for our Airbnb in Mon Repos. Again, I get to drive the best roads (accidental, I promise!).

On arriving in Mon Repos, we meet our host and depart immediately for turtles!! We're in the last group of the night, as we only booked on our drive down, so while we wait for our turtle time, we eat a fish and chips supper from a terrifying man in a van.

Then it's turtle time! It's a mixed bag...
Turtle 1: we came to Turtle 1 as she was digging her egg chamber in the wet sand. Our guide recognised her from the previous night, as her back flippers had been damaged, meaning she struggled to dig her egg chamber to the correct depth. Our guide tried to help by scooping more sand out behind our turtle, but the turtle got spooked and headed back to the sea :(
Turtle 2: having seen the beginning of the nesting process, we now skipped to the end of the nesting process, and were taken to see a turtle who had laid all her eggs and was busy covering them over while being logged by the Rangers.
Turtle 3: a Flatback turtle (unusual as 95% of the turtles at Mon Repos are Loggerhead turtles) which we saw as she made her way back into the ocean.
Turtle 4: we came to turtle 4 as she was body pitting (using all 4 flippers to clear away the dry sand and grasses from her chosen spot). Unfortunately, as she was beginning to scoop out the sand for her eggs, a volunteer walked along the beach into her line of sight, spooking her. Turtle 4 turned around 180 or degrees, as our entire group stood motionless, pretending to be trees! As she returned to her spot and began body pitting again, we left her to it, not wanting to put her off again.
Turtle 5: just as we were beginning to lose hope, finally, we saw turtle 5 as she was beginning to lay her eggs! Nesting in action! Amazing. The guide initially thought she was a new turtle, as she didn't have any identification tags, but then noticed scarring on her flippers, where the tag had been lost. Apparently it can get dislodged during mating, as the male sometimes bites the female's flipper! Kinky. So we witnessed the turtle being tagged again, which wasn't hugely pleasant. But a necessary evil, for the good of the species!

Having finally seen the full nesting process, and tired, sandy and salty, we head back to our Airbnb for a good night's sleep.

AB