This wildlife moment beats seeing the Mona Lisa or the Colosseum

A walkie-talkie crackles. A voice whispers just loud enough so I can eavesdrop: “Chssuhhhh, she’s coming up the beach.” Silence. “Chssuhhhh. Bring ’em in.”

This feels military-like, though even the army might baulk at manoeuvring a boatload of over-excited tourists through a saltwater croc-encircled island among highly sensitive, heavily pregnant flatback turtles looking for a place to lay their eggs.

Turtle tracks, but where’s the turtle?

So far, we’ve been taught to drop and act like a rock if we see a turtle. We’ve been told to keep together in a tight bunch. We’ve been told to never use bright lights or flash. And most pertinently, we’ve been warned to stay away from the water’s edge because a big dominant male croc rules this island. (“How big is he?” someone asks. “Ohh, you don’t want to know”.)

When we look back on our travels when we’re done, I bet it’ll be the interactions with wild animals that stand out most. For these sorts of opportunities aren’t like seeing the Mona Lisa at the Louvre or the Colosseum in Rome: nothing in nature runs to a timetable. The only guaranteed experience you’ve got with a marine creature is at SeaWorld.

Sea Darwin’s Turtle Tracks tour only runs twice a month when the tides and moon (full and new) increase our chances of getting close to a flatback turtle laying eggs on an uninhabited island (Njulbitjlk, or Bare Sand Island) 90 minutes’ motoring time west of Darwin Harbour.

And yet, even then, no one can guarantee we’ll spot a single turtle. Flatback turtles are listed as vulnerable, with less than 20,000 nesting females left globally. In such a sensitive environment, marine conservation is all-important and marine biologists and postgraduate students lead the group at a site we only visit with the blessing of the local Kenbe people.

A flatback turtle digging in.Credit: Tourism NT/Aude Mayans

We arrive on Njulbitjlk in the late afternoon as the tide creeps towards its peak – turtles prefer to lay eggs when the dunes are closest to the water, saving them from crawling too far up the sand.

Our boat parks on the water’s edge, and we clamber down a ladder, eyes on the water for lurking reptilian snouts. It’s quiet here, only sooty oyster catchers, frigate birds and silver gulls make any sound. We walk slowly down the beach, scanning for any sign of turtle tracks in the dusk. There are no new ones, so we take a seat on the sand to watch the sun set in an explosion of orange only the tropics can conjure as tiny shovel-nose sharks splash back and forth in the shallows.

It gets dark quickly up here; the stars are bright enough to illuminate the sand … though there are no turtles. And then the walkie-talkie crackles. “Chssuhhhh… bring ’em in.”

My senses are buzzing, but the guide deliberately slows us down. We advance slowly, and I see her now digging a hole in the sand. We approach as one big shape. She stops digging, and the guide tells us to shuffle in closer.

A turtle makes its way back out to sea.

“She’s in trance mode,” she says. And I’m shocked by what comes next. Without warning – did I expect a trumpet call?– eggs appear, just like magic. I see them form like a detergent bubble does in those bubble blowers we all had as kids. When they’re big and round and white and perfect, they drop down into the hole, replaced by the next one. I count 20, 30, 40, 50? So many I lose count. I’ve seen plenty of creatures in the wild, but never quite so… intimately.

When she’s done, she covers the eggs with sand (they’ll hatch at night, 50 days later) and labours back to the water, using both front flippers simultaneously to move along. In the shallows, as we watch her depart, the red eyes of a massive croc stare back, never blinking.

Only in the Northern Territory can nature make you teary one minute and try to kill you the next.

THE DETAILS

FLY
Qantas (qantas.com/au) and Virgin Australia (virginaustralia.com/au) fly regularly to Darwin from Australia’s east coast.

STAY
Stay in a serviced apartment in the heart of Darwin from $309 a night, magnumdarwin.com

TOUR
The Turtle Tracks tour runs seasonally with the lunar cycle from 4pm until late and costs $369 a person: check the site for the next dates. Proceeds from tickets go to the Australian Turtle Research Project, seadarwin.com/darwin-tours/turtle-tracks/

The writer travelled courtesy of NT Tourism, see northernterritory.com