World's Most Amazing Aquarium
Trip Start
Aug 17, 2008
1
24
44
Trip End
Jun 17, 2009
Agnes Water,
Queensland,
Australia
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Bundaberg as a town had little to offer (we think it is the most "blah" resort towns we have seen in Australia), except for a tour to a (supposedly famous) Australian rum distillery and a night visit at a turtle research center, where you can actually watch a turtle laying her eggs on the beach during the breeding season
01 - Police station in Bundaberg
. The tour at the rum distillery proved to be a not-so-subtle advertising tour for which (adding insult to injury) you had to pay $30 per person to get the privilege of watching a Bundaberg propaganda film. Since we thought that one usually gets paid to see advertising (say, like at Miller's factory tours where they pay you with free beer), we've we decided to skip it and buy rum with that money instead (not a great call either; its flavor wouldn't came anywhere near a good Jamaican rum. Or at least that's what we think!). Therefore, we've spent the rest of the day shopping for groceries, washing the car and updating the blog waiting for the sunset and the turtle rookery tour to start.Indeed, the tour at the Mon Repos Turtle Research Center did not disappoint us by any means and we are really glad we stayed for one more day in Bundaberg to see it. About 1 hour after sunset a park ranger surveys the beach to find out whether any turtles came out for that night to lay their eggs. Once he has indentified a few turtles, he radios in the coordinates and the crowd of tourists is split into several groups and led to the beach by other rangers. The walk takes place in complete silence and under the starlight because turtles can be easily startled and, when they are, they just turn around, dive into the ocean and not come back for the night. Interestingly though, once they start digging the hole where they will lay their eggs, they don't seem to mind the 10-20 people gathered around them and, even more interestingly, not even the flashlight that the ranger puts into the hole for the visitors to see the egg-laying process
02 - It was love at first sight
. "Our turtle" that night was a huge (the shell alone was more than 3 feet/1 meter long) but relatively young (in her thirties) Loggerhead turtle. It was very surprising to see how efficient she was at digging, using her back flippers in a very similar manner with how a human would dig out such a hole in the sand. After finishing a quite large hole in about 20 minutes or so, she proceeded laying her eggs. On average, a Loggerhead turtle lays around 120 eggs, but our turtle was on a roll that night and she laid no fewer than 138 eggs. We know this because, after the turtle returned to the sea (they are quite quick runners, by the way), the ranger dag out the eggs to relocate them on higher ground where they won't be in the path of the potentially harmful waves. And the tourists from the group were asked to take a couple of eggs in their cupped hands and carry them to their new home, about 30 feet/10 meters higher on the beach. It was a very interesting experience, being so close to this beautiful and ancient-looking creatures and learning a bit more about their habits and the threats we humans pose to their survival. So, with newly-found enthusiasm, we booked our passage for the next day to the reef on a small cruise that was leaving the Town of 1770 at 10 AM, giving us plenty of time to make our way up there from Bundaberg.Oh, well, since one cannot make the best decisions all the time, we made our bad one when booking this cruise. The company we've booked the trip with, the "Undersea Adventures" (paying the same price as you do with the bigger, better, more established cruises) was newly founded by a few Australian blokes and catered mainly to divers and not so much to snorkelers. While some people might praise the small scale tourism and the personal attention you get from these "non-industrialized" boutique tour companies, we are sure to disagree with their take on things as this boat was quite small, smelt awful (it was a former fishing boat that they didn't even bother to clean it properly when changing its purpose), the staff was shabby-looking with no manners or inclination for being of service, not to mention the rather dismissive attitude towards snorkelers
03 - Our heroine mother-turtle
. OK, maybe the skipper, Don, had somewhat better manners, but his "partners in crime" were all we described above and more. However, we were ready to overlook all these as our main goal was to see the wonderful reef and its fantastic coral and fish. Well, that didn't happen either. Discounting the fact that it was quite cloudy outside (OK, not the tour-operator's fault), the snorkeling masks were leaking permanently and we actually did not see anything that day. While that might have happened to G because of his beard (but interestingly, neither Vaseline, nor silicone gel would help. How likely is that?) we'd like to think that in L's case it definitely was because of a crappy mask and lousy-fitting seals. No, really! :-) Of course, the guys that were running the boat did not bother to help us with fitting the masks or to offer any advice of how to deal with the leaking (which later we found that two fingers on the forehead seal and blowing air through the nose help clear quickly and efficiently while still under water) and we were incredibly bitter at the end of the day. OK, the cruise on the dark ocean with a sea of stars above made it somewhat of an unforgettable return trip but not something you could justify spending US$200 on. So, bad call of the trip? Check!Stubborn as we are though, we've decided not give in to the bitterness and to try one of the big, established, "commercialized" cruises that run daily from the Town of 1770
04 - End of the night shift at Mon Repos
. We were also determined to see the reef on a sunny day, so we did not make any reservations, just stayed put and watched the weather forecast (not that reliable in this part of Australia by the way, as we were to discover again and again) and woke up every morning to assess the sky for ourselves. Therefore, we have spent the next two days just relaxing on the beach, drinking beer, sleeping in when it was raining and hoping for a sunny day. The town of 1770 and its sister Agnes Water are small, low-key resort towns, with beautiful, long and sandy beaches but, unfortunately, without much to do other than... going to the beach. One evening, to brake the "routine", we drove to the point where it is believed that Captain Cook has first landed in Australia, took a walk, a few pictures and admired the views.Well, our patience finally paid off and, on a sunny Sunday morning, we've decided that the weather looked promising, G shaved his 2-months old beard (What a heart break!) and boarded the Lady Musgrave Cruises towards the coral atoll named, you guessed it, Lady Musgrave. This ship and the crew were light-years ahead of the Undersea Adventures in service, cleanliness, friendliness of the staff and the quality of gear. And, although there were close to 100 people on board (two busloads of Chinese tourists to start with), we've never felt crowded or hurried in any way. The company has devised an efficient schedule that includes a walk on the coral island (or kay, as they name it here), a trip with a glass-windowed semi-submersible and all-you-can get snorkeling/diving
05 - Not bad for a night's work
. You can do all of these activities or none, but most people choose to do it all (on a rotation basis) so there were never too many people in one place at the same time.After a two-hour fun trip to the reef (fun, because we did not get seasick in spite of the bouncy sea and we got to ride outside, on the high speed catamaran's fore platform), the boat pulled up to its private floating pontoon that had a covered seating area, change rooms, shower and waterline platforms for easy snorkeling access. So, we started the day with a 45 minute walk to the Lady Musgrave coral cay. The 14 hectares/35 acres cay is a naturally-made piece of "land" consisting of dead coral and bird poop (plenty of it!). The seeds of the island's dense vegetation were carried over from the mainland by all types of birds that now inhabit the island or by the Coral Sea's waves and ended up covering the whole island in a dense forest. The cay is surrounded by an extensive lagoon, with deepwater access and some of the most beautiful coral in the world. While walking on shore, we were lucky enough to spot a few turtles floating tranquilly on the water and we could've easily joined them for a swim if we wanted to. We chose to return to the pontoon though and, after a surprisingly nice and diverse lunch buffet, we took the glass-walled semi-submersible for an overview of the reef. While it was fascinating to see the coral and the fish from the comfort of the vehicle, this paled in comparison to the two hours snorkeling that followed
06 - L excited to help the conservation efforts
. The water in the lagoon was crystal clear and warm and offered us fantastic views of the creatures and we felt like we were just dropped into one of Jacque-Yves Cousteau's documentaries. Since fishing is not permitted on the Great Barrier Reef, the fish on the coral are plenty, and the diversity of the species (over 1,200 on this atoll alone), sizes and colors is most remarkable. And more importantly, they do not seem to fear humans at all. You can held your hand out and almost touch them. The coral is also amazing: all colors, shapes and forms, interspersed with huge clams breathing calmly underneath you. It is hard to describe the feeling you get when you're in the open water and all this beauty surrounds you but surely the sentiment that you are in front of a world-class wonder is overwhelming.
And since the experience was so awe-inspiring and we felt that those two hours in the water were not enough to satisfy our curiosity, we've decided to take the same cruise the next day. When we got off the boat and inquired at the office if they had any availability for the next day, we got the nice surprise to find out that if one goes to the reef two days in the row with the same touring company, the second trip is 50 percent off. We sure didn't mind! So the next day, while L spent over four hours in the water snorkeling, G decided to take an introductory dive class. While it was without doubt a fantastic experience (first time he'd tried this), he thought that diving doesn't really make much of a difference from snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef. On the contrary, since the most colorful and active creatures live within 3-4 meters of surface, diving doesn't really add much to the jaw-dropping experience of swimming above the reef (with a good mask though
07- The newer, "better" home for the eggs
. An absolute must!). However, that doesn't mean that in other environments scuba wouldn't be fantastic. It absolutely would. Only that in this wonder named Great Barrier Reef it wouldn't be worth spending several days in the classroom to get a PADI certification when that time could be used snorkeling :-) In the end, we think the highlights of our snorkeling on the coral were spotting a huge moray eel (see if you can spot it in our pics; it was HUGE but not so easy to notice), a few small sharks, an octopus and a beautiful manta ray. Not to mention the amazingly colored fish like the Moorish Idol and, of course, all of Nemo's brothers.After these two breathtaking days we've packed our things and headed to our last Australian destination: Brisbane. While driving to this place we invited a fellow backpacker to join us. Sabina is a German lady that we've met on the cruise and who needed a lift to Brisbane, so the time went fast as we chatted about everything, from travelling plans to world geopolitics (and everything in between). Oh, and by the way, after a lot of identity searching, we've finally came to terms with what we've been during these past four months (yes, "backpackers" just didn't fit well enough). Just google "flashpacker" and see what the end result of this soul-searching was. And FYI, yes, we meet all the 4 technology criteria ;-)
Comments
WAW!!!
Super poze, super experienta! Va invidiez ;)
You guys...
You look terrific, sunburned, rugged, and ready for the best to come. The underwater images are pretty, and all this sun and warmth make me feel better already (here in MN it's 7F). Thanks for sharing all these things with us, and for your discipline n doing it.
And G, really... I think it's time for that beard to go away. Poor thing...