We recently visited Mon Repos Conservation Park and went on the Turtle encounter, and had the pleasure of watching the nesting of a beautiful Mummy turtle, a really special activity that caters for children.
Mon Repos Conservation Park is located at Bargara (near Bundaberg), a lovely beach town, a 4.5 hour drive north from Brisbane.
The nesting and hatching season is from November to late March each year, on nightly from 7pm excluding the 24th, 25th and 31st December.
In the earlier months visitors have the opportunity to book a turtle experience and watch the turtles come up on the beach and lay their eggs.
In the later months visitors view the hatchlings emerging from their nests (little baby turtles).
Note - due to limited photo opportunities (which I'll explain below, there's a good reason for this), the above two photos are stock images, not real images taken by Kids To Do. These photos were chosen to give you a good idea of what you may see (keeping in mind it's at night).
If you're planning on making a booking to see the Mon Repos Turtles, do this as early as possible to secure your place. As at 2nd January, 2014, tickets are $10.90 for adults, $5.70 for children, or $26.00 for a family of 2 adults and 2 children (ages 5 - 14 years), children under 5 are free. A $3 booking fee applies in addition to this.
You'll need to arrive at the Mon Repos Conservation Park and Visitor Information Centre at 6:45pm, it's clearly signed from the road.
Upon seeing the above sign, you'll turn into a long driveway and find lots of car parks.
You don't need to arrive any earlier than 6:45pm, as you will have plenty of time to visit the Information Centre while you wait for your group to be invited onto the beach. If you arrive on time you shouldn't have any problems with car parking, we were running a little late and arrived at exactly 7pm and took the last 2 allocated car spaces, so arrive on time!
When you arrive you will join a queue, the queue appears quite long (given we were right at the back), but moved extremely quickly. Don't panic about your position in the line, groups are pre-allocated, being at the front of the line won't change which group you're in.
When you get to the front of the line, you're given a sticker which indicates the group number that you've been allocated (i.e. Group1, Group 2, Group 3 etc). Groups are assigned on a first booked, first allocated basis, so book your tickets as soon as you can if you want to be one of the first groups to leave.
Once you've received your sticker, you'll head into the Information Centre and have a chance to look around.
The Mon Repos Information Centre is packed with information about Turtles.
There are displays of the turtles, displays of the hatchlings, walls of information about turtles and about Mon Repos, displays that showed me what an emphathetic little boy we have. In this photo he was saying "Mummy, can we save the turtle from the net? He needs help Mummy".
The Information Centre also has activities for kids, they had tables and chairs where they could do some activities, throughout the night had scheduled kids activities (which we missed because our group was so quick being invited onto the beach!).
They have things for kids to do on the wall....
... and also puzzles and books.
Once everyone has been allocated with their group and sticker, the Rangers call everyone into the auditorium (this is outside) and talk to you about the process from here.
The Auditorium has plenty of seats and gives everyone the opportunity to listen to the Ranger and watch informational videos on the big screen while they wait.
Everyone has been allocated a group number, from talking to people around me it sounded like there were 5 groups (don't quote me on that). There are Rangers out on the beach looking for the turtles and as soon as one is spotted, groups will be called out in order.
So when you see the time of the Turtle Encounter and see that it's from 7pm to 2am, all groups are arriving at 7pm, several groups may leave at the same time or they might be staggered, you may have no wait time or may have to wait quite a while. It all depends on the turtles.
While you wait, you can visit the Information Centre (see details above), sit in the auditorium and watch the informational shows, browse the gift shop....
... have a look around, sit down and rest / have a snack....
(Note the look on our son's face... he just realised that his little friend brough a coloured torch with him. The disappointment was great until we realised that there are STRICTLY no lights allowed on the beach! Don't bother packing things like glow sticks, torches or lights of any kind!)
...go to the toilet or visit the food and coffee van.
If it looks like rain, you'll need to take a raincoat with you, you can't take an umbrella on the beach. The food van also sells ponchos.
When your group is called, you'll be reminded about the rules... the big one being NO LIGHTS.
You'll follow the rangers down onto the beach and head towards the turtle has been 'pre-spotted'.
I need to mention the 'no lights' rule. You'll be asked to switch off your mobile phones in case they ring, don't use any torches and make sure there is nothing bright that might frighten away the turtle.
At first I thought to myself 'surely they can't be that sensitive, this rule must be in place because if everyone in the group decided to switch lights on at once, or pull out their mobile phone, as a group, it might frighten away a turtle. I was wrong. We'd just settled in to watch a turtle about to nest, sitting in a semi-circle, when a man walked out of a nearby carivan park with a mobile phone or torch, straight past our group. The turtle stopped what it was doing, turned around and went back down the beach and into the water. The poor thing was frightened away. We'd all had the opportunity to see the turtle up close, we just hadn't seen it laying eggs. We had to head up the beach in a different different direction to find another turtle. People in the group were given the choice to be escorted back to the Information Centre if they'd seen enough, or continue with the experience. We continued.
Back to what happens....
The Ranger will give you instructions along the way, like "no lights", "when I tell you not to stand still... stand still" etc. Once the Ranger has located the Turtle and it's settled itself in, he/she invites all of the children (adults & children if the kids are too young to go on their own), to head up towards the bank and seat themselves around the turtle. This was absolutely lovely, the kids were all sitting down at the front and could see the action. They were very considerate about making sure everyone had a chance to see what was happening. The people behind the children were asked to kneel down low, the people behind that were asked to stand. Everyone could see what was happening.
The Rangers give you lots of information (which causes you to absolutely fall in love with the turtles), and at a time when the Turtle has finished laying her eggs, you can take a couple of photos.
The photos below aren't really representative of what we saw... just through I should mention that. What we saw was more amazing. You actually see the eggs falling into the hole below the turtles, a Ranger picks up the egg and gives you the chance to touch it (it looks like a ping-pong ball), and if you're really lucky, you may have the opportunity to help re-locate the eggs if they aren't in a suitable place.
You then wait a short while as everyone has a chance to be in the front row, watching what's happening, wait for the turtle to finish, then escort the turtle back into the sea. This was my favourite part :).
As our turtle went into the water, she turned around, stuck her neck up really high, and it felt like she was saying goodbye to us.
Then we headed back to the information centre... in love.
When you arrive, you will forget your previous resolution NOT to buy any more things for your children... head to the gift shop and but them the cutest turtle souvenir you can find! You also have the opportunity to purchase a certificate about 'your' turtle (only $2), which gives you the information specific to the turtle that you watched (they've been tracked previously, there may be a history).
To give you an indication of how long this process took, we had one false start with the turtle scared off by the light, we arrived back at the Information Centre at 11;15pm.
If you're anything like me... you'll have a million questions about what you should take and how your kids are going to cope with a late night like this. Read on for all the details appropriate for parents.
If you're taking young children, get in and book as early as you can to secure a place in one of the earlier groups. There's obviously not guarantees that the early groups will be quick, or even that the later groups will go until late, but your best chance is to book early.
The waiting was actually quite easy for us, we went with 4 adults and 4 children (3 of them were 4 years, one was 2 years), we waited half an hour, there was enough to do, we could have waited longer and the kids would have been fine. Pack some snacks to help with keeping them occupied.
Your only opportunity for eating is BEFORE you are called onto the beach, you don't know how long you are going to wait, if your wait time is only 15 minutes, if you don't have your dinner before you're likely to end up with hungry children.
My suggestion is to have dinner before you go, but take snacks with you, or be prepared to purchase something from the food van as a snack.
Keep in mind, everything you bring, you carry. You could be in for a bit of a hike, you don't want to carry too much. So don't pack a gourmet picnic for the whole family!
I brought along everything but the kitchen sink (in a rather large handbag), and regretted it. You really don't need much.
There are toilets at the Information Centre, you need to encourage your kids to use the toilet before they go onto the beach, if you have really young kids who are recently toilet trained I'd suggest putting them in a nappy... just in case! You won't have an opportunity once you're on the beach.
Prepare for a short walk on soft sand (i.e. more challenging), then the majority of the walk was on more solid sand. You may be walking for 20 minutes one way, find the turtle, spend quite a bit of resting time, then spend 20 minutes walking back to the Information Centre. In our case, given our turtle was scared away by a person with a light, we did this twice. Think about the need for baby carriers and appropriate foot wear!
Obviously this is an activity that both parents and children will enjoy, it's not just about 'whether your children will enjoy it', but if they are too little to appreciate it, no reason why you can't go and they can go along for the ride. We had children of all ages in our group, and I was observing the kids to see what they thought. Below is a little guide giving you things to consider.
Ages 0 - 2 years - This was an easy age group, the kids are free, all of the zero to two year olds that I observed were in baby carriers, after about a minute of walking, sound asleep against their Mums and Dads. The time of night combined with the rocking movement of walking and soothing waves was a perfect combination to rock them soundly off to sleep.
Ages 3 - 4 years - This was the hardest age group to manage, potentially too young to fully appreciate what they are seeing, tired, and a little on the heavy side if you need to carry them. We took our twin 4 year olds along, they are terrible at walking (my fault, I carry them everywhere), I took along my baby carriers and they were happy as long as they were being carried. They loved watching the turtles, loved being out late (up until about 9:30pm), at this point, they just snuggled in to me. If you have kids 4 and under, I'd suggest you take a baby carrier with you, if they are on the older side, the Ergo Baby Carrier is fantastic for carrying older kids. If you have one child, put them on your back, if you have two children and want to try carrying them together, put the heavier child on your back and the lighter one on your front, you'd be surprised at how comfortable it is. Obviously if you're not used to doing this, have a practice before hand, you will be walking on sand!
Photo of Thomas & Lucas, sleeping on me, on the beach (after we'd had our turn at watching the turtles and decided to move to the back to give other people our spot).
Ages 5+ - Absolutely loved it, made the most of question time - putting their hands up to ask questions or demonstrate their knowledge :). They felt really special being taken off to see the turtles first, all of them were engaged and interested.
We went in the middle of the heatwave, boiling hot day and I was convinced we didn't need jumpers because we'd been having hot nights. It was borderline. Thomas was completely happy with the temperature, Lucas started complaining about the cold, but he was happy once I put him in the baby carrier. I'd suggest you take a jacket for little ones, just in case. I definately didn't need it, but keep in mind I was carrying two kids and it was the hottest day of the year!
In regards to what to wear and clothing - you'll be walking along the beach, not in the water but on both wet & dry sand. You'll also be sitting in the sand. I wore shorts & thongs and couldn't have been happier with my choice! If it's on the cool side, I'd suggest 3 quarter pants rather than full length pants, just in case there were puddles!
Pretend you're having a picnic on the beach at night, then going for a walk - dress accordingly.
We'd been warned that there were two things that could scare turtles away: light and movement. So it was dark and we were very careful to stop when our Ranger told us to stop. That gave me the 'feeling' that my noisy children needed to be "shushed" (they were very noisy (noice noisy, they were just asking questions about what they were seeing) and I was constantly saying "shhhhh, you'll scare the turtles away"). As the Ranger started her first talk she's using a microphone and explained about how the light scares turtles and they can sense movement, but they can't hear like we hear. Don't be concerned about your noisy kids, the turtles won't care... I'm not sure about the other guests :). Each time time the Ranger said "be very still", we just picked our kids up (if they were walking).
View the Mon Repos Information brochure for all the details about the experience.
We enjoyed it, our kids enjoyed it, and I really didn't understand the impact it had until today. We were driving along today and they started to talk about Turtles and how important they are, how much they like them and how you needed to be very gentle with them.
For me, I now have a love of turtles I didn't have before the experience. For our children, they have a new respect for animals and I have another reason to love them... it really showed me how empathetic they are... deep down, when they aren't fighting over a toy or pushing each other :). They showed me the soft side - when they saw the turtle in the information centre trapped in the net, there was real concern. When they talk about turtles now it's with real though and compassion. It's hard to teach these things, an experience like this demonstrates it - 100 times more effective than your words!
Well, Thomas & Lucas have slept with their turtle cuddle toys every night since the experience!
Thank you Mon Repos, not just for the experience... for the fun, but for the information and for everything you do with your research and helping these lovely animals!
If you haven't considered a visit to the Bundaberg / Bargara Region, it's a lovely place to have a family holiday, download our Bargara with Kids travel brochure for all the information you need on where to go and what to do, we've taken the kids on two holidays to Bargara in 2013, our travel brochure gives you information about where to stay, playgrounds, where to eat and other fun things to do.
Stickies
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