Last weekend I was able to see something that many Australians who have lived here for their entire lives haven’t seen — a wild platypus. The platypus — everyone’s favourite mammal that lays eggs — is a bit of a shy animal. It digs its burrow in the banks of streams and tends to stay there during the day, often only venturing out between dusk and dawn.
The guide on our Tablelands & Waterfalls tour knew that the platypus living in one of the streams near Malanda was different. When we arrived, he told us that two out of three of his tours see one within 15 minutes of arriving at the lookout. He was starting to lose hope after we’d stood in silence on the grassy hill for ten minutes when suddenly this little guy popped up.
He only stayed on the surface for a matter of seconds before disappearing, leaving only a ring of circles as though someone had dropped a rock in the water. In the next ten minutes, he reappeared many times in a grand circuit of the stream, so we got a pretty good luck at his duck bill and wide, flat tail. It was definitely the most special wildlife sighting of the day for me.
Here are a few other photos of our lookout and the platypus:
