Platypus in Bombala, NSW: Aug 10-13

We wanted to get to Bombala, a rather obscure, tiny lumber town in the “Snowy” Mountains in southern NSW that is barely known for its town mascot - the Platypus. We had done some online research before coming and this was the only place that we could get to within the skeleton of our itinerary. Only mildly unfortunate, the town was so small that the bus only came through three times a week from the capital, Canberra. Consequently, we had to go on Friday and wait until Monday to return. But it was so worth it! We saw dozens of Platypus (we asked around and that appears to be the plural of Platypus…not Platypuses like we wanted it to be, or Platypi).

It was again below freezing and we ended up buying a few extra layers since it's best to see our fuzzy duck-billed friends at dawn or dusk. So I bought a hat and gloves and charles got gloves and a hoodie and we headed out to find these elusive freaks of nature with their duck-bills, webbed feet, otter-like bodies, poisonous spurs and egg-laying abilities! How could you not love animals whose young are called Puggles!!! I mean really!? That's so cute. Wasn't there a stuffed animal thing called a Puggle back in the early 90s? Oh, no...I'm thinking of Popples maybe. The ones that turned inside themselves to make a bag or something... Anyway, I'm getting off track.

There are so many of them! And they're really not hard to see if you watch the surface of the water on a still day. You'll see their heads, the top of their bills, and another lump for their rumps skimming smoothly across the water, or just hanging out like a floating log. They are shy though and you can't move too quickly along the edge or they will go under and hide or come up farther away. I would love to see them out of the water, but I'm not sure they ever do that. But even the small glimpse we got into their lives was endearing. i thought they would be closer to the size of a small otter, but they're really small, like the size of a tiny housecat. Apparently they are even smaller up in Queensland and a bit large in Tasmania.

During the day when we weren't looking at Platypus, we took a hike up to the "look out" which was a surprisinly nice short hike up a rocky hill. This is where we met our very first Boing Boing! He was a rock wallaby and so very cute. He was just quietly watching us from a rock not too far away. We slowly got closer, but unfortunately didn't get quite close enough for a good picture before he boing boing boinged away. So here's an extremely zoomed in, slightly blurry one. We love these guys!