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Published: January 26th 2011
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For most Australians the name Bundaberg is almost always closely followed by Rum or Ginger beer. But this small east coast town has other attractions beyond it's famous beverages, the best being the Mon Repos Turtle Rookery. We bought our tickets from Arthur, the old chap at the Info centre, and then dashed about town finding dinner and a place to rest our heads.
When we pulled into a jam packed carpark half an hour later and saw hoards of people queuing at the entrance we weren't sure what to expect from this experience. But we shouldn't have doubted the slick operation of this long running conservation project. The crowd was divided into manageable groups, and we read and watched informative media while researchers patrolled the beach. Once a turtle was sighted and she had begun to dig out her nesting site one group would be led to observe. It was a busy night for turtles and before long group three was called. We tiptoed down the dark beach to where a huge loggerhead lay and watched in awe as she laid 150 eggs! It was wonderful to see this natural act happen before our eyes. Even more amazingly as
we stood there two other female turtles lumbered up the beach beside us and began this labour of love. For two weeks the females will make repeated dangerous journeys to shore to lay hundreds of eggs, and during this time they don't eat a single thing! After over two hours of solid effort the poor mother to be struggles back down to the water where she first flipped her flippers fifty years ago. For us watching the efforts of these turtles was very special and we felt privileged to have witnessed it. Almost three hours had passed since we arrived and it was definitely time for us to head back to the motel for a G&T before bed.
Having spent the evening watching a turtle family be created, the next day we did some historical family searches of our own. Maryborough, an hour and a half drive from Bundy is a pretty town, full of colonial buildings and home to the author of the Mary Poppins stories. Also calling this charming town home is the Maryborough Family Historical Society. With the opening tongue-in-cheek comment of "were any of our family convicts?" from Lewi being met with stony silence we
thought we'd ruined our chances. But thankfully the clan of women were easily distracted and the name Backhouse set them all a chattering. We discovered that a Benjamin Backhouse lived in this town and even designed some of the buildings, he was an architect, in fact quite a few Backhouse's were dredged from the wealth of literature these ladies had amassed. Without proper dates from Dads family tree it was hard to place these characters though, so with many thanks to these kind women we hastened on to Rainbow beach.
This is one of the ports to take a boat to Fraser Island where we would be heading tomorrow but it is also the site of a spectacular sand blow. We arrived late afternoon, as usual, and upon meeting the "effervescent" Debbie and seeing the gorgeous rooms at her place we were bound to say yes. She was a whirlwind, rushing about, answering telephones and preempting our every thought. Thanks to her plentiful advice all that now remained to be done was a trip to the Carlo Sandblow. The funneling of the wind through the cliffs and huge ever advancing drift of sand that engulfs whatever is in it's
path, is an impressive sight. Apparently it's even better from an eagle's perspective, so a paraglider nonchalantly told us as he relaxed after a two hour flight. Perhaps that's the next activity to try...I've always wanted to be able to fly.
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