Beauty Point - Platypus & Echidna

 Overnight we had some pretty wild weather with thunder and very heavy rain. Its also quite cool again. We had more cereal and toast for breakfast and packed up for our next drive along the coast to Penguin.


First stop was a photo of the Batman suspension bridge and then on to Beauty Point for the Platypus and Echidna house. We  were a bit early for their 10 am opening so drove on to a nearby café to get a coffee and something to eat. There wasn't much on offer so we opted for scrambled (for Miriam) and fried (for me). It wasn't very busy but these relatively simple requests took about 30 minutes to produce and were very disappointing. I had to cut off the hard frilly, edge bits of my eggs and the toast was only cooked on one side. To add insult to injury there was no Wi-Fi available due to some technical issue in the area.

I thought Platypus display would be like a natural environment with bush and a stream but it turned out to be a large shed on the wharf. We were both pleasantly surprised to find that, for our $27 entry fee, we got a guided tour by a lovely young girl who reminded me very much of Rosie (Miriam's brother Michael's youngest). She spoke like her (but with an aussie accent) looked like her (with her brightly dyed hair and numerous facial piercings) and was a similar build - quite eerie. She was very knowledgeable about her beloved monotremes and it really was a great thing to do. For those who don't know what a monotreme is, these are egg-laying mammals which, like birds, only have a single opening (the cloaca). Through this they urinate, defecate and lay their eggs!

They only have four platypuses, one male called Jupiter and three females. One of these is Jupiter's girl friend although they have yet to breed successfully. Just some eggs so far. They are all in glass sided pens full of water with some dry areas. However, they spend most of the time swimming around looking for food. Hosana (our guide) popped in some live worms, fly pupae and a live yabbie and they duly swam around looking for them and having a good feed. When they dive they close their eyes so have to find  the live food by sensing it with their bills. Quite amazing animals.

To see a YouTube video of them, click here.

After that we entered the echidna room where we asked to sit down in a circle and let them come to us - but no touching them as they are spiky! They have to be the cutest things and instantly come over to get some food and then wandered around amongst everyone there looking for any other treats. These animals are apparently quite numerous throughout Australia but we haven't seen any in the wild as yet.


To see a YouTube video of them, click here.

Popular posts from this blog

Remarkable Cave

Image
 We left Port Arthur around 3:30 pm and headed back to White Beach. On the way we made a detour to see Remarkable Cave. This is an incredible geological feature where the sea has eroded a cave through a dolerite sub-surface layer overtopped by sandstone. There are around 150 steps down a series of metal stair cases to where the cave breaks through to a large cavern with a collapsed roof. There are actually two entrances but you can only see through one out to the sea. The wave action was impressive but it was not a particularly stormy day so in rough sea conditions it would be even more amazing.
Read more

Port Arthur

Image
 We started the day with a walk to a local pop-up café which had good reviews but sounded a) all vegan and b) only open Friday to Monday (meaning today was our only chance to go). It turned out to be great find with new owners (they have been there three weeks) set in a Pear orchard with great coffee, We shared a wonderful pork, apple and fennel sausage roll with crisp light pastry. Judging by the number of cars that had arrived during our visit, I think the locals like this place too! A great way to start the day. Next stop was Port Arthur (about 20 minutes drive away). We had planned to just check out the prices and times before exploring other things in the area before 'doing' Port Arthur tomorrow. We hadn't realised quite how big the place is and the tickets cover you for two consecutive days so we decided to start here today and finish our visit tomorrow.   Another reason for doing it this way was that tomorrow there is a cruise ship coming in and there will be 3,000 v...
Read more

Auckland to Hobart

Image
Once again the flight was very smooth and we arrived in Hobart ready to start our holiday. The plane was only about half full. No wonder Air New Zealand don't have many direct flights from Auckland. When we were taxiing after landing I thought the terminal building was just a service area for the airport! Not much different from a rural airport like Gisborne or Napier. No air-bridge but at least the access stairs turned out to be a ramp rather than steps. Another long walk followed along the edge of the apron to the International Arrivals building. Once we were through immigration the next step was to get picked up by East Coast Car Rentals and collect the car. This turned out to be more of a challenge than I had thought. My plan to save on daily roaming charges was to keep our phones in Flight Mode and use local Wi-Fi to allow us to use Wi-Fi calling to make calls since we have free calls to NZ and Aussie numbers. Not so easy! It turns out that Hobart airport's Wi-Fi does not ...
Read more