Although Australia is known for its beautiful beaches and scorching hot weather, the diverse and unique wildlife is something to truly marvel at.
Forget the zoo and take a drive down a country road to see kangaroos leaping across a grassy paddock. Don’t get too close, though, because they aren’t called boxing kangaroos for nothing. These muscular marsupials have sharp claws, and balance their weight on their incredibly strong tails in order to kick unwelcomed visitors with full force.
You can feed carrots to wild rock wallabies on Magnetic Island, and you can usually spot a mum with a joey in her pouch as well. Feeding tiny kangaroos raising even tinier kangaroos – its heart-melting!
If you wake up in the middle of the night and hear what sounds like monkeys , don’t be fooled – monkeys don’t live in the wild in Australia. This is the infamous Kookaburra’s laugh (like from the song), and these birds are quite mischievous. Kookaburra’s can swoop down from trees and steal food right out of your hand!
It won’t take you long to spot a brightly-coloured brush turkey kicking up twigs and leaves for no apparent reason. They are called “brush” turkeys because they brush rubbish, twigs and leaves into a nest and incubate their eggs in the decaying mulch. Not the most attractive behaviour but the species is thriving, so it works for them.
Where else but Australia could you find a non-poisonous spider that can grow to be as large as a dinner plate!? The Huntsman spider lives off of pesky insects and received its name for being fast and aggressive. These spiders won’t bother you with a web because they don’t spin them and don’t need them.
As you travel north, you will have to mind where you swim because the warm, northern waters of Queensland are home to both fresh and saltwater crocodiles. Male saltwater crocs can grow up to seven meters in length and weigh over 1000kg! Don’t stress – signs are posted to alert beachgoers about which areas are safe to swim and which should be avoided. See you in a while, crocodile!
If you find the right beach, and are there at the right time of year, you can watch baby sea turtles hatch from their eggs and wander drowsily to the ocean for the start of their long lives at sea. As you may have already learned from Finding Nemo, sea turtles can live to be over a hundred years old!
For the North Americans who are used to seeing geese fly north for the summer and south for the winter, Australia has a migratory mammal – the Humpback whale. These mammoth sea creatures can be seen bounding in and out of the ocean, moving along the coast with the changing seasons. You can spot them slapping their tails and fins as if there was nothing more to life – it looks like a whale of a time.
This is just to name a few of the many species of incredible creatures found in Australia. It’s a wild life here, and the animals host the party!
Bamba Experience offers amazing Independent Hop-on Hop-off Passes and Adventure Trips in Australia, do not miss out on an endless summer where the living is easy; a place where the adventures are as vast as the horizons and the jokes flow as freely as the beer; a country of can-do spirit and easy friendliness.
