The Prom

So, I know this post is a little late. Technically, Kristi and I went to the prom quite a while ago - nearly ten years ago in Kristi's case! No, I'm just kidding of course; this post doesn't relate to the high-school dance. Kristi and I went to Wilson's Promontory - known locally as "the Prom" - a couple of weekends ago.

The Prom is a peninsula about 3 hours east of Melbourne. It is unadulterated "bush country." We did quite a bit of hiking and got to see some really nice coastal views, rivers, eucalyptus groves, waterfalls, and the like. It was very relaxing. We stayed at a cabin located about 2 km's down a dirt road and situated just off the water.

It really squeaks!!

The highlight of the trip, however, was the wildlife. We mentioned to the visitor center at the Prom that we would like to see some wildlife if we could. The lady was very nice and told us about a spot near an abandoned air strip where lots of animals come to graze at night. She told us that we would need to pull off the road at a specific place (it is unmarked) and then make our way through the line of trees/brush to find the clearing. If we got there right at dusk, we should see animals. We were pretty excited.

We found the unmarked pullout (mostly by luck) and proceeded to make our way towards the dense tree growth along the side of the road. We found only one trail that appeared to lead through the trees and promptly took to following it. After several feet we determined that we were actually on a wombat trail. The primary evidence for this was that wombats are about two feet tall, and so was the clearance for this trail. Kristi rationally concluded that this was obviously not the trail we were meant to use and we were likely in the wrong place. I saw no other trails and irrationally determined that what was good enough for a wombat was good enough for me. I volunteered to go ahead alone to see if there even was a clearing ahead. After several yards of clumsy crawling, crouching and hobbling (and one ripped tee-shirt later), I did in fact come to a clearing. And in one of the more exciting moments of my life, I saw two wild emus standing about 50-yards in front of me.

I called for Kristi to crawl through the wombat trail, and just as she made her way to the clearing I spotted a gravel maintenance road off to the side that would have provided easy walking access. Sorry honey. In any case, we were both too excited about the emus to care.

We wandered around the clearing quietly and saw some heads poking above the grass in the distance. We slowly progressed towards them and eventually discovered dozens of kangaroos coming out to graze. We kept our distance at first, but we found that they didn't seem to be bothered by our presence in the slightest. So, we continued to inch closer in order to get a better view. At various intervals a random kangaroo would stick his/her head up, would look at us, and would then return to grazing as if he had seen nothing unusual at all. Apparently kangaroos are not too shy around humans, which was good for us because we were able to get an awesome view. As kangaroos came out of the woods we were eventually surrounded by perhaps 50 to 60 of the animals. It was one of the most satisfying experiences of my life. We had our camera and we took lots of pictures and videos. I felt like Steve Irwin.

One of the cutest things we have ever seen was a group of joeys in the middle of the mob ("mob" being the technical term for a group of roos). The joeys would stand around for a minute and then suddenly break into little boxing matches. It was hilarious. We tried to get some video, but it was a little far away.

I say the boxing joeys were one of the cutest things we've ever seen - probably the absolute cutest things were the wombats. As we were standing among the kangaroos, we saw a couple of wombats come out of the woods. These guys were definitely more shy than the kangaroos, so we didn't want to scare them by getting too close. Even so, they were incredibly cute. They look like large hamsters - only with cute, chipmunk-like faces. Too fun. See our video below.

Kristi and I agreed that we could have stayed in that clearing for pretty much the entire night. It was an amazing experience. We had to leave before it got too dark because we were basically in the middle of nowhere and they caution you to stay off the roads at night to avoid animal collisions (which are unfortunately quite common).

The next day, we enjoyed more scenery including an amazing waterfall and some cool coast-lines. Of course, we kept our eyes peeled for more wildlife - and we were not disappointed! We first saw a wallaby hopping along the side of the road, but the driver was going too fast to get a picture (sorry about that). We next spotted an echidna crawling up an embankment. Echidnas are also pretty cute. I think maybe all Australian animals are cute.

The highlight of the second day, however, was on a secluded road heading down to some coast off Cape Liptrap: We saw a wild koala sitting at the base of a tree by the road! We stopped and got out and the koala quickly raced up the tree. I feel bad about scaring it, but it was a pretty short tree, so we were able to get some good pictures while staying a safe distance back.

So I think we have now seen nearly all of the primary Australian animals in the actual wild: emus, kangaroos, wombats, wallabies, echidnas and koalas. Of course it would be fun to see a platypus, but they are nocturnal and apparently quite rare. Overall, this trip was great for the relaxed pace and amazing scenery, but the wildlife made it unforgettable. It was awesome.

Stay tuned for our Sydney post!