Getting to the ocean is no small task for baby sea turtles.
The animals have to break out of their shells, dig their way out of the sand and dodge predators along the way to the water.
Once they are in the ocean, more dangers await them.
The journey for dozens of baby loggerhead turtles on the New South Wales Central Coast has been made a little bit easier with the help of wildlife experts and volunteers.
Ninety-three baby turtles were released into the ocean at Shelly Beach overnight after their nest was excavated and transported to Taronga Zoo in Sydney just over a week ago.
Taronga Zoo senior veterinarian Larry Vogelnest said he could not believe the turtles had made it this far.
"The success rate is phenomenal," he said.
"It's beyond our expectations really."
The nest was the southernmost on record for the endangered species, which is more commonly found in south-east Queensland.
One hundred and thirty of 134 eggs were deemed viable when they were excavated out of the sand last month.
They were transported and kept in warm incubators at the Sydney zoo and after a couple of days, the turtles started hatching.
"If it was left any longer there probably would have been a high risk that the hatchlings wouldn't have survived," Mr Vogelnest said.
Shelly Beach locals Mick Burns and Claudia van der Plaat had alerted the authorities to the nest after they spotted the mother turtle returning to the ocean in January.
They were invited down to the beach to watch the baby turtles released.
"It's just incredible. We walk this beach every day and now this amazing thing is happening," Ms van der Plaat said.
"We saw her nest and now we're able to see all the babies get released and it's just an incredible and fun experience."
The release started with a smoking ceremony by the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council.
Chairperson BJ Cruse said it was significant to include the local Aboriginal people in the cultural handover of the turtles.
"This is the area where they were first laid so they would have had a purpose in life," he said.
"So, for us as Aboriginal people, we believe everything has a beginning and the beginning for those turtles is here on Darkinjung Country."
Most won't survive to adulthood
The sad reality for these turtles is that most will not live to become mature adults.
In the ocean, they face predators and growing risks such as plastic pollution.
"A large proportion of them don't actually make it," Mr Vogelnest said.
"But at least if two, three, or four actually make it out of the 100 or so that hatch it's good for the species."
The species is also facing possible feminisation, which makes this batch of hatchlings even more significant.
Sea turtles have temperature-dependent sex determination, which means the temperature experienced in the nest will determine the sex.
"We have a term that's cool guys and hot chicks," Nicola Booth from the state's National Parks and Wildlife Service said.
"Because this is so far south, we're anticipating that most of these hatchlings will be boys, and that is great for the species."
About 20 more hatchlings are expected to be released onto the beach in the coming days, but Mr Vogelnest said zoo staff would never be able to determine what became of these little turtles.
"They're so tiny, and we can't mark them or put anything in or on them that we can detect later in their life," he said.
"So, we'll never know."
