Our backpacking trip: Febrero 5 - 6 / February 5

El 5 de Febrero salimos del camping temprano en la mañana y manejamos hasta Bagara. Fuimos a la playa y estuvimos en el mar jugando con las olas. Encontramos un muy buen camping para pasar la noche.

En la noche fuimos a Mon Repos, un lugar de conservacion de tortugas marinas. Llegamos a las 7:00pm y despues de hacer la fila nos asignaron el grupo 4. Nos pidieron que esperaramos pacientes en el auditorio hasta que llamaran nuestro grupo. Alli vimos un video sobre las tortugas y luego vino un voluntario a hacer una presentacion a cerca de las tortugas. Cuando iba mas o menos en la mitad de la presentacion la llamaron por el radio y le dijeron que mandara el grupo 4 a la playa. Nos juntaron a mas de 40 personas que estaban en el grupo 4 y nos llevaron a la playa. Alli conocimos a Ansley la voluntaria a cargo de mostrarnos las tortugas en la playa. Ansley nos llevo a uno de los nidos de las tortugas de donde hace un par de noches habian salido tortugas bebes pero basados en la informacion que tenian, creian que faltaban mas por salir y habia que ayudarles. Cuando llegamos al lugar habian dos investigadoras sacando tierra y tortugas bebes y poniendolas a un lado. Cuando terminaron de sacarlas a todas, contaron y habian rescatado 53 tortuguitas que se podian poner en el agua; pero esto no es una tarea facil. Las tortuguitas necesitan obtener una informacion de los campos magneticos de la tierra para poder volver a la misma playa a poner sus huevos una vez hayan llegado a sue dad reproductiva que es aproximadamente a los 30 años. Asi que pusimos las tortuguitas en la arena y les alumbrabamos el mar con linternas, ellas van buscando la luz y finalmente llegan al agua. Al final las 53 tortuguitas llegaron sanas y salvas al mar.

Despues regresamos al auditorio y estaban presentando una pelicula sobre las tortugas marinas. Al cabo de unos minutos llego un voluntario y llamo a todo el mundo para la playa, pero no habia mucha gente… y como nosotros estabamos ahi de una nos levantamos y salimos con todo el mundo. Esta vez el grupo era mas pequeño porque la mayoria de la gente se habia ido, era mas de media noche pero nosotros queriamos ver mas de este hermoso espectaculo natural. Llegamos a otro nido, esta vez pudimos ver como las tortuguitas salian por sus propios medios de su nido y veian la superficie por primera vez. Esta vez solo salieron 13 tortuguitas y los investigadores se llevaron 10 para medirlas y pesarlas antes de soltarlas al agua. Despues pusimos las 3 tortuguitas en la playa y vimos como encontraron el mar y se fueron.

Pero este no fue el final de la noche, nos encontramos una mama tortuga que llego a poner huevos. La tortuga estaba trabajando en hacer el hueco que es de aproximadamente 60cm de profundidad e iba muy bien; pero desafortunadamente la arena alrededor colapso y la tortuga decidio regresar al mar. Un investigador paro la tortuga para obtener la informacion que tienen en un tag asi que pudimos ver muy de cerca esta increible criatura marina.

Nos fuimos a las 2:00am con una sonrisa en la cara despues de haber visto semejante espectaculo de la naturaleza.

El 6 de Febrero fuimos a la Playa de Mon Repos para ver los nidos during the day. Desafortunadamente el verano este año ha estado muy caliente y con la arena a temperaturas de 70C algunas de las tortuguitas se mueren antes de salir a la superficie. Tuvimos la fortuna de ver algunas de las que no fueron tan afortunadaa.

En la tarde llegamos a un pequeño pueblo llamado Seventeen Seventy (1770). Alli estuvimos haciendo un par de caminadas. La primera en el Bosque Paperbark y la segunda en el Mirador Seventeen Seventy. El atardecer estuvo bastante bonito desde este lugar.

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On February 5 we lef the campground early in the morning and drove to Bagara. We went to the beach and spent some time in the ocean playing with the waves. We found a good campground to spend the night.

In the evening we went to Mon Repos, a turtle conservation place. We arrived at 7:00pm and after queing for a while we were assigned group 4. We were asked wait in the auditorium until our group was called. We watched a video about turtles and later one of the volunteers came to do a presentation about turtle biology. When she was half way her presentation, she got a call on the radio asking her to send group 4 down to the beach. We assembled at a designated point and got guided to the beach. We met Ansley the volunteer in charge of showing us around. She took us to a nest where some turtles had came out a couple of nights ago but they suspected that there were more inside so they were going to help out. When we got there, there were two researchers digging into the sand and finding hatchlings that she put aside. When she finished digging, they counted 53 small turtles that could go into the water; however it is not that simple like putting them in the water. Turtles need to grab some information from the earth magnetic fields so they can come back to nest when they reach sexual maturity 30 years later. So we dropped them on the beach and pointed flashlights to the sea so they can follow such lights and end up on the water. Eventually all the 53 turtles found their way safely into the ocean.

We then returned to the auditorium were they were showing a movie about turtles. A few minutes later another volunteer came over and called everybody to the beach, but there was not too many people… we were there so we took advantaje of double dipping on this beautiful tour and ran down to the beach again. This time the group was smaller because most people had already left, it was already midnight but we were eager to see as much as they wanted to show us. We reached another nest, this time we could see how the hatchlings were managing their way through the sand and emerging on their own from their nest to see above ground for their first time. This time there were only around 13 small turtles, however the researchers took 10 of them to measure and weight them before releasing them. We then put the 3 on the beach and saw how they managed their way into the ocean.

However this was not the end of the night, we came across a mom turtle that came over to lay her eggs. She was working on digging her nest, which is around 60cm deep and was well under way; unfortunately her nest collapsed and she decided to go back to the ocean. The researcher stopped the turtle to get some information off her tag so we had a good opportunity to see this magnificent animal.

We left at 2:00am with a big smile on our faces after seeing such a beautiful natural spectacle.

On February 6 we went to Mon Repos beach to see the nests during the day. Unfortunately the summer this year has been very hot and with sand temperatures in the 70C some of the hatchlings die before coming out to the surface. We were able to find some of the unlucky ones on the beach.

In the afternoon we arrived at Seventeen Seventy (1770), a small town. We went for a couple of walks. The first one on the Paperbark Forest and the second one to Seventeen Seventy Lookout. The sunset was very nice from there.