Echidna Adventures - Maroochy Botanical Gardens

We headed down to the Maroochy Bushland botanical gardens on the weekend and not to give the last photo away but....I saw an echidna in real life!!! We actually missed him when we first walked past but thanks to some kids coming up to us asking where the snake was (Daz was re-telling a previous snake encounter story) the kid's parents gave us the inside, echidna location, scope! To be the hero of the story, everyone thought the echidna would be long gone but I convinced them to go back and lucky for me the echidna was still there, hiding in some leaves. We waited a little while to see if the echidna would stick his head out but no such luck, they're shy guys :p Still, I can now tick echidna off my 'Australian animals to see in the wild' bucket list! Still need to see a Koala!

Echidna!!!

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Day Three - Latrobe

This entry is pretty much simply to brag that we saw a platypus in the wild!! One of my goals this year, before even dreaming up Tasmania was to see a platypus in the wild, it just turns out tassie has an abundance of wildlife and thus the chances of seeing a platypus were pretty good, especially in Latrobe, home to the platypus. My research told me dawn or dusk were our prime times, though since we spent much less time in Railton than expected we decided to wonder around latrobe's park to get a feel of the area and return back later before sunset. Not to carry the suspense any longer, at 1pm a platypus swims right past us, not only did it dispel the dawn/dusk myth it was also completely non shy as we sat watching it fish for food for about fifteen minutes or so. Definitely one of the coolest moments of our trip.

After being way too efficient with the day, we decided to press onwards to tomorrow's itinerary, crossing a few more big things off the list and checking out Devonport's lighthouse.

By the way I came up with the best accidental puns of the trip this day

Heading to find the big spud, I said to Ben "keep your eyes peeled"

And then on the way to the big apple and after getting slightly lost I told Ben,

"I'm not too cut up about finding it"

And after telling Ben I was pretty sure I saw a quoll he remarked "I'm not qualified to comment"

We cracked each other up :)

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