I loved getting to see so many animals in Australia that I would never get to see outside of the zoo. While my brother and I were in Sydney, we went to the Taronga Zoo because our friends said it was a beautiful place and we could enjoy a wonderful view out over the harbor.
But our real animal adventures started when we left Sydney. My brother, Josh, and I rented a car and drove to Melbourne, but we decided to follow a blog that I had read and instead of following the highway, we took a week and drove along the coast. We didn’t really have any idea what we were doing, but Josh had made reservations at different little towns along the way based on the blog post I had sent him.
I’m glad he’d made reservations in advance because it was summer in Australia, and lots of people were out and about on their summer holiday.
Other than the stopping locations, we didn’t really have any idea what we were doing. Most evenings, we would get to the motel and check online for interesting things to do in the area. Sometimes we found really fun things to do, and sometimes the things that we tried to do turned into disasters. We also talked to lots of people and got some great suggestions of things to do. Again, sometimes this was wonderful, and sometimes not so much, but all of the people were very friendly and lovely to talk to.
We didn’t run into too much wildlife over the first couple of days, so I’ll skip those places for now. When we got to North Durras, Josh had found us an adorable little cottage behind a couple’s house. We chatted with them, and they suggested putting out some bird seed so we could see the birds. I did put out the bird seed, and it disappeared, but I never managed to catch sight of the birds.
But we did see some kangaroos who were relaxing in the grass in the backyard. I was amazed that there were kangaroos in my backyard! What was the world that I had walked into?
Per their suggestion, we also walked down to the beach. The weather was a bit cloudy, and it had been raining off and on all day, but as we walked to the beach, it was a bit cool, but not raining. On our way, we passed some kangaroos chilling in the grass beside the road. They looked at us, scratching themselves—I wondered if they had ticks or flees. But I was still so excited and amazed to see kangaroos in the wild!
I wondered if they were a bit like deer, so I asked the owner of our cottage if they were pests, but he didn’t seem to mind them. He said sometimes he would help pick ticks off of their bodies, and they were friendly enough and comfortable enough around people that they would let him.
We walked along the beach, enjoying the peaceful waves. I didn’t feel much like getting in since it was quite chilly, and a bit rainy, but we walked down, found a little cave, and then walked back as it started to mist.
On the way back, we saw a cluster of green and red parrots in the grass. Wow! Our world is so full of so many beautiful birds!
The next morning, I was less excited about this wonderful new world. As usual, Josh and I woke up early. We didn’t have super bad jet lag, but even after being in Australia for more than a week, now, we still went to bed early and got up at around 5 or 6 a.m. I read my Bible and prayed. We weren’t in a hurry to go anywhere.
The bugs came slowly at first, and I just noticed a few falling onto the bed from the ceiling. I think they were mayflies, and since they didn’t seem too harmful, I didn’t care too much. But as I kept reading and journaling, the flies increased. The started dropping onto the blankets and into my hair from the ceiling. I felt like I was constantly brushing them off of the bed and away from me. Several hours later, I noticed that the flies had migrated across the room and then disappeared. I still don’t know what was going on with them, but I guess they had a morning routine too.
We planned to go on a little hike in the area, so we got up and packed up the car, expecting to just hop in the car when we got back from the hike and head out. We ran into the couple on our way out and mentioned our plan.
“Oh, yeah! There are lots of nice hikes around here,” the owner said. “This should be a good day, but watch out for ticks and leeches.”
Ticks? I was starting to have second thoughts. If I am in a place with ticks, I always tend to get them. I’ve had ticks behind my ears, on my back, in my hair. When I was a kid, I remember my mom holding matches to my skin to try to coax the ticks to lift their heads out so she could pick it off. I hate ticks.
Leeches? That doesn’t sound great, but shouldn’t be as bad as ticks, right?
Josh and I set off toward the train head. It wasn’t raining, and it wasn’t too hot. The rain seemed to have passed on in the night. Nobody else was on the trail, but that was fairly common in Australia. I was confident we would meet up with more people later on.
The forest was beautiful, and we enjoyed looking at the trees. As we walked, we still didn’t see any people, and as the trail started branching off in different directions, we wondered if we were going in the right direction. I was going in front, and I kept my hand at the level of my eyes because I kept running into spider webs.
Spider webs in Australia were a bit intimidating. I had heard about all of the poisonous animals in Australia, but I didn’t know enough about them to know if the spiders that we saw were safe or not. We also started hearing animals we didn’t recognize just out of sight in the trees.
“Where are all the people? And where’s that lake we’re supposed to be seeing?” Josh asked.
“It’s probably just up ahead,” I said, hoping this was true as I dodged another spider web. If other people were on this path, there shouldn’t be so many spider webs, right?
“Do you wanna just head back?” Josh asked a few minutes later.
I hate giving up on a hike, but I was starting to feel uncomfortable too, and I was still nervous about the ticks. “Ok, sure.”
We headed back the way we had come, but when we got to one of the first branches, I looked down at my legs. A leech looked like it was burrowing into my skin. I pulled him off, and thankfully realized that he hadn’t bitten me yet. But as he tried to get away, it really did look like he was burrowing into my skin.
“What is it?” Josh asked since I had stopped.
“I have a leech. Eww.” I finally managed to get him off, but before we would keep walking, I realized that he wasn’t the only one. My shoes and socks and ankles were actually covered in about a dozen leeches. Since most of them weren’t on my skin, they were a little easier to pull off, but I was starting to feel pretty uncomfortable. “You might wanna check for leeches also.”
“Oh, yeah, I have some.”
We stood there in the grass pulling leeches off of our shoes until it seemed like they were all gone. Then we again headed back toward the car.
“Yeah, I think this is a good hike to give up on. Maybe we can go to that Aboriginal area that I also saw on the map.”
“Ok, sure.”
When we got back to the cottage, we found a few more leeches, and I checked my shoes and socks carefully to make sure there were no more. I also checked for ticks, but thankfully didn’t see any. I didn’t relax for the next couple days because ticks tend to turn up even a day or two after a hike, but thankfully, I never saw any—just those terrible leeches.
We drove about 20 minutes back the way we had come to try to find the Aboriginal area, but when we got there, it had a private property sign on it. We had also lost our data, but thankfully we remembered the roads we had turned onto, and managed to find our way back. We decided to just head to the next town for dinner and give up on all of the morning activities. We had failed on everything so far.
We drove for a while, stopped at the town and walked around, looking for some of the restaurants that the guy from the cottage had mentioned. We couldn’t really find them, but then we found a seafood restaurant on the bay. It was busy and looked very fresh. We walked past, but since we didn’t see anything better, we went back and ordered some fish and chips.
I know this is supposed to be a post about wildlife, and the fish that we ate were not still living, but they were delicious—the best fish and chips I’d had since I had it the first time at Burroughs’s market in London.
We sat in a covered outside area next to the bay and enjoyed our first successful adventure of the day. But those other adventures sure were… good stories!
Over the next several days, we encountered lots more wildlife, but I’ll have to share about that in a future post!
