Catching the hatching: Mon Repos’s ‘turtle dance of life’

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Bundaberg’s Mon Repos Beach is home to half the South Pacific’s nesting loggerhead turtles – and one of nature’s most ancient rituals of life.

How like a celebrity to keep you waiting? Herded together on the moonlit sand out of turtle sight, we watch Mon Repos’s rangers mill about like a diva’s PR team, phoning in updates.

 

“No, she’s not ready," ranger Cathy Gatley tells her walkie-talkie. “She’s still body-pitting." We’re here for the stars of a 100 million-year-old show. Every November to March, some 360 female turtles heave themselves ashore at 1.6-kilometre Mon Repos beach – the biggest turtle rookery on Australia’s east coast – to lay and bury their eggs, repeating a cycle of nature dating back to dinosaur days.

 

Body-pitting (flippering a shallow depression) is the prelude to egg-chambering (digging a laying hole with back flippers). Watching is verboten as turtles spook easily and often return to the sea before laying. When she’s finished we’re ushered into her moonlit presence – no lights allowed until the eggs are about to drop, and then sparingly.

Loggerhead turtle central

Like 95 per cent of local nesters, she’s a loggerhead, a huge-headed beast with a barnacled browny-yellow shell. A quick check of her tagged flipper – she swings her beak sideways in passing irritation – confirms she was first tagged in 1998, making her at least 50 years old (they first nest at about 30).

 

This is her second clutch (of four, on average) this season but it’s in serious trouble: she’s laid below high-tide and saltwater dunkings are lethal. “They’re creatures of instinct," explains Cathy. “Their behaviour isn’t learned and sometimes they just get it wrong."

 

On prehistoric automatic pilot, the turtle’s indifference to us is astounding. Bereft of fight or flight instinct, she starts to lay, and we each have a close-up view of the wet, white eggs slipping from leathery hindquarters into the sand-pit. A below-tide nest would be doomed on another beach, but already rangers and trained volunteers are egg-chambering up in the tussocked dunes, scooping out a safe house beyond the waves.

 

Finished, the turtle covers up and, puffing and flailing, readies to aim seaward. The rangers waste no time digging up the 101 eggs. There’s a literal deadline – after two hours, handling will tear newly formed embryonic membranes, with fatal consequences.

Helping to move the eggs

“Who wants to help relocate the eggs?" Cathy asks. Uh, that’d be everyone. We’re handed two eggs each, soft leather ping-pong balls, which we reverently carry to the alternative nest, then follow Mama Turtle rowing herself down the beach. When she hits the waves, everyone breaks into spontaneous, heartfelt applause.

 

It’s 9.30pm and most people are satisfied, but the show goes on for rangers, scientists and diehard sightseers. Later, walking along the sand with ranger Shane O’Connor, we spy a noticeably different turtle track.

 

“Looks like we’ve got a flatback," he says, tracing it to a dark-coloured turtle with a shell less domed than the loggerhead’s, and with an upturned rim. Largely tropical in range, flatback turtles are very rare arrivals here.

 

Shane gets on the radio to turtle expert Dr Col Limpus, somewhere along the beach. “He won’t wanna miss this."

Mon Repos turtles guy

Indeed, Col doesn’t miss anything on Mon Repos. He hasn’t missed a season since 1956 and began scientific research here in 1968. He’s behind many a famous turtle fact, such as the discovery that they return to their birthplace (or nearby) to nest.

 

He’s also worked tirelessly to save Mon Repos’s turtles from offshore shrimp trawling, feral foxes and even more feral property developers. Suddenly looming from the dark, portable ultrasound in hand, Col is delighted to find this isn’t just any flatback. It’s K10534.

 

“One of my superstars," he says; a source of much data. “She’s got one more clutch," he says, after examining the egg follicles. With laying done, 10 eggs are borrowed for weighing and measuring.

 

For all Mon Repos’s conservation triumphs, its loggerheads are at high risk of becoming fishing bycatch in South American waters, where they spend years before returning to nest. “Recruitment of youngsters is dropping off," Col points out. First-time nesters are rarely seen – most arrive already tagged – which suggests the species’ future remains precarious.

 

Meanwhile, 70 centimetres below the sand, 101 embryonic loggerheads are alive and well – thanks to us, which feels damn good. In a couple of months, they’ll pop up to scurry desperately seawards.

 

And maybe – just maybe – one will be that one-in-a-thousand survivor that hauls herself from Mon Repos’s gentle breakers three decades from now, drawn irresistibly across the Pacific to her birthplace to continue the prehistoric turtle dance of life.

Details: Mon Repos turtles, Bundaberg

Getting there: Mon Repos is a 15-minute drive east of Bundaberg, Queensland, or 10 minutes from the coastal town of Bargara.

 

Playing there: Turtle viewing at Mon Repos Regional Park runs between November and March each year during the hours of 7pm and 1am, by ranger-led, pre-booked tour. Hatching starts January.

 

Staying there: Offering one, two and three bedroom apartments, the luxury 4.5-star resort Manta Bargara is one of several beach-side bliss-out options along the Esplanade at Bargara.

This new beachside resort comes with a front-row turtle show

    By
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    One night encountering nesting turtles at Mon Repos Beach is all it takes to transform holidaymakers into awestruck witnesses of marine conservation in action. 

    A new ecotourism benchmark, NRMA Parks and Resorts’ Turtle Sands fits neatly behind the dunes – front row to the wonder of nesting and, weeks later, hatching loggerhead, flatback and green turtles.  

    turtle swimming

    Mon Repos supports the largest concentration of nesting marine turtles on the eastern Australian mainland. (Image: Tourism and Events Queensland/Mad Dog Productions)

    This stretch of the Southern Great Barrier Reef has long been a holiday playground.

    Mon Repos Conversation Park

    Mon Repos Conservation Park (Image: Tourism Australia)

    And now this former caravan park has been transformed, leading the way in wildlife-friendly design with environmental sustainability and accessibility at its core. 

    All about the accommodation offering 

    baby turtle at Mon Repos

    A hatchling makes its way across the sand. (Image: Tourism and Events Queensland/Acinta Shackleton)

    When we arrived, we let out a sigh of relief as we spotted a bank of EV chargers. Our new Omoda E5 loaner needs a top-up, and charging spots on the road from Brisbane have been scarce, unreliable or out of action. It’s the first of many sustainability features that set the resort apart. We’ve officially left the everyday and much less eco-friendly world behind. 

    Turtle Sands Beach House

    Inside Turtle Sands’ ultra-comfortable Beach House. (Image: Tim Bond)

    A 100kwh solar system allows Turtle Sands to be almost off-grid but with enough grunt to power energy-efficient, motion-sensor air conditioning and lighting. At check-in, we take the Turtle Protection Promise, pledging to minimise impact and to only walk on the beach between 6am and 6pm. 

    Accommodation includes powered caravan sites, accessible studio rooms, glamping tents, three-bedroom villas and the Beach House – a reimagined 1917 schoolhouse. We’re among the first to put the latter through its paces.  

    Designed for two with an ultra-comfortable king bed, the full kitchen makes self-catering a snap. Like the outdoor kitchen, we don’t get to give it a test run because Bundaberg’s restaurants are too good to miss. Cleverly, the mud room entrance doubles as a butler’s pantry with a pod coffee machine and wardrobe. 

    Beach House's tub

    End the day with a soak in the Beach House’s tub. (Image: Tim Bond)

    I get first dibs on the tempting tub in the oversized and luxurious bathroom. A ceiling fan makes an excellent backup or alternative to the air-con in the combined living and bedroom space that opens through floor-to-ceiling glass to a party-sized deck. It’s the ideal spot for an early morning cuppa to listen to the ocean continually reacquainting itself with the sand. 

    Why NRMA Turtle Sands is the ultimate family holiday 

    Turtle Sands turtle-shaped pool

    NRMA Parks and Resorts’ new Turtle Sands with its turtle-shaped pool.

    Late afternoon, Turtle Sands transforms. Around the pool, families toast to the good life with unfiltered happiness. Plastic glasses gently thud stubby holder-dressed beers. Everyone, it seems, has left their everyday world behind. “Marco!” echoes from one end of the turtle-shaped pool, met with thunderous “Polo!” responses.  

    The Garden Mill Cafe fish tacos

    The Garden Mill Cafe in nearby Bargara. (Image: Tim Bond)

    Sprawling teenagers scroll phones while still-dripping kids dart about smelling of sunscreen. Sizzling sausages mingle with the aroma of fresh pizza from the food truck. The sheer joy is infectious. This is more than a holiday – it’s a celebration of family and nature. 

    With only a million-star sky and sliver of silver moon to light the way, our Omoda E5 seems at home as we return later from dinner at the outstanding Water St Kitchen. Turtle Sands is dark except for motion-sensor lights. Still, except for the occasional blood-curdling scream of eastern curlews, it’s another moment to breathe in the briny air and just be. 

    Turtle encounters with a difference 

    hatchlings on Turtle Encounter tour

    Spot hatchlings on a Turtle Encounter Tour. (Image: Tourism and Events Queensland/Jacinta Shackleton)

    Evening unfolds quietly at the world-renowned Mon Repos Turtle Centre near Bundaberg. Rangers carefully guide 60 of us along the moonless beach, after locating the night’s first nesting female loggerhead turtle.  

    Guided by an extraordinary internal compass, she has returned to the exact beach where she hatched three decades ago – a remarkable and puzzling navigational feat. Every sandy plod we take is calculated to ensure we don’t disrupt the turtle’s delicate egg-laying ritual. 

    Mon Repos beach

    Enjoy the beach year-round.

    We have dubbed her Roxanne (inspired more by The Police than Cyrano de Bergerac). She has instinctually and methodically powered her furiously flicking flippers to sculpt a sanctuary for her 114 ping-pong-ball-sized coloured eggs.  

    Our rangers closely monitor Roxanne, recording her measurements and marking the nest’s location. As the kids grow restless, Roxanne may or may not be flicking sand their way.