We were on a quest to have a big day including some of our favourite things. First up we headed down Urangan Pier in Hervey bay. We walked the whole way down the pier which is about 900m one way. It was a nice walk out and we got to see some fish and fisherman. On the way back we were extremely lucky to see a White Bellied sea eagle. It was up on the lamp post eating some fish it caught. We stood around for a bit watching it snack away.
Then it was off for our first activity for the day which was based on Chris. We went across to Reef World to do the Green Sea turtle feeding. Every day at 11am you can head in and hand feed their 2 big male sea turtles. We had a quick look around the aquarium and then headed out to feed them. They were so cute! We all loved feeding them their bits of lettuce and giving them down scritches.
We headed out for the next activity of the day which was for Joe. We were heading to Maryborough to visit the Mary Poppins Museum. It is in the old bank where P.L Travers was born. On our way we stopped at McDonalds as Chris wanted a mc muffin at 11.50am. Everone else copied him and got one too. Chris said I had to include this in the blog.
Back to Mary Poppins. We got to walk through the old bank and learn about her life, her books and the movies. It also included lots of elements around story telling. It was really cool. Also the crossing lights near the museum had Mary Poppins as the green and red lights. Very cute.
The lady at the Mary Poppins Museum told us we need to go to the town hall to go and see the public toilets. As apparently they are called the Cistern Chapel. So of course we headed down there to see this. The toilets were actually very fancy. They have been painted like the cistine chapel and the ladies room has a gold toilet. It was one of the fanciest toilets I have been in.
Chris decided it was to be sushi for lunch so we headed there and had a late lunch. Then it was a quick return to the apartment to get our stuff and make the 1 and a half hour drive to Bundaberg. We had a quick dinner at Burger Urge and then headed to the Mon Repos Turtle Center.
When we arrived we were put in Group 2. We were told it could be a while and to have a look around the center and then find a seat and relax. However as soon as we entered the information part and announcement came over saying the night was starting early and Group 1 needed to leave right now. Because it was so early a lot of people in group 1 were not there yet we were promoted to Group 1.
Very quickly we headed out to the beach and found ourselves ready to go. We only had to walk a little way down the beach and were told we were extremely lucky as the baby logger head turtles were going to hatch the ranger was even excited as they haven’t had a huge amount of luck lately. We got to see 80 baby logger head turtles hatch and start running down the beach. The ranger collected them and put them n a holding pen while we counted them. She bought 2 around for us to have a look at and take photos. We then got to make a tunnel along the beach and watch all 80 of them run through to the beach. We were not allowed photos or lights as they needed to find the way to the beach. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen.
On our way back to the center we saw a beautiful turtle coming up to nest. We had to wait for her to go past. Once we were back they told us we could go out again as there was a nesting turtle. We got to see a turtle get released back into the ocean on the way down. We then got to witness this beautiful Mumma turtle lay her eggs. She just let us all hang around her while she layed about 100 eggs. It was just amazing. We were so lucky to see all of these things.
We got home at 12:30am and went straight to bed! I would honestly saw its one of the best things I have ever done.