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Bundaberg, we stayed here for three nights, its an industrial town where they farm sugar cane , alot! the second night we went on a footprints tour to see baby turtles hatch at the mon repos national park. we were picked up at 6pm and taken down to the information centre up on the shore and taken down in groups by the conservation workers that help to protect the turtles. we arrived at a nest just as the tiny turtles were emerging from the sand, perfect timing i though, little did i know that as soon as a nest starts to hatch the tour guides cover it with more sand until we get there! it was amazing watching all these tiny turtles making their way through the sand to the surface. once they had all made it to the surface the guides put a small cage around them so that they could pick some up to show us how small they were, then the whole group made two lines leading to the sea with a few poeple in the middle (inc steve and i) we stood in a line in the middle of the pathway the group had made with our torch pointing at the feet of the person in front of us. then they let the turtles go and it was fanatstic as they tickled your toes as they scrambled through your legs on the way to the sea. afterwards we went back to the nest to watch the guides dig it up to count the empty shells to see how many turtles hatched - 127!! Then came the most special part, our footprints tour guide was a volunteer for the turtle conservation and so took us down to another beach where she had been informed that two other nests had hatched and it was her job to dig up the nest to count the empty shells. this time our group had only 4 in compared to 60 on the tour just before. the second nest we dug up we found three tiny turtles stuck in some grass roots that hadnt come to the surface with the others, it was amazing as we were able to hold these turtles ourselves and we took them down to the sea and guided them into the water with our torches. we were so lucky to be able to hold the turtles ourselves, cheesy to say but it was a once in a lifetime experience!
the next day we went to the famous bundaberg rum distillery for a tour. we saw the whole process of rum making from the sugar cane to the bottling, the whole factory site smelt of lovely sugar cane! after the tour we got two drinks vouchers each, we tried rum & coke, rum & lime & bitters and an exclusive to the factory rum liquor, it contained rum, chocolate, coffee and sugar! we gave the last drinks voucher away as we decided we didnt like the taste of the rum! next we moved up to rockampton where we were doing a cattle farm stay, cant wait!
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