The unique wildlife of Australia

In August '02 I took a 19-day trip to Eastern Australia, joining a tour in Cairns which took me by coach 1,330 miles down to Sydney. Purchased through Qantas, the tour, operated by AAT Kings, plus airline ticket and Sydney stay, cost $4,588 including the single supplement.

My main reason for going to Australia was to see the wildlife.

Australian wildlife is unique with creatures like the echidna, a mammal that lays eggs, and the duckbill platypus, another egg-laying mammal, which has a tail like a beaver, webbed feet and a nose like a duck's bill. These were just two of the marvelous creatures I saw.

Cairnes and the coast

Cairns was a good place to begin because in the shallow water off the seaside esplanade were Australian pelicans, shearwaters and gulls. Australian ibis were as common as sparrows and roasted in the trees at the Oasis Resort Hotel where I was staying.

I visited Cairns' Flecker Botanic Gardens, and in the adjacent Melaleuca wetland, a rainforest habitat, I saw a bush turkey. On a path beside the wetland I met a woman pushing a stroller with a boy, about three years old, in it.

"You haven't seen any bush turkeys, have you" she asked. I. told her I had seen one in the wetland.

"See, I told you," she told the boy, "they're not out here on the path. He's so afraid they'll bite his toes!" He was barefoot as many people in Cairns were.

At Rainforestation Nature Park, a private sanctuary, our group was taken in vehicles called Army Ducks through the rainforest and into a lake. We saw various birds and the eastern water dragon, a small iguana-like lizard that sits on branches overhanging the lake.

At the Great Barrier Reef. I saw aquatic life, including small shimmering silver-colored fish in schools and brightly colored fish. A small sea turtle and larger fish swam by. I took the submersible, which takes people below surface for optimum viewing, and also went into the underwater observatory at the pontoon platform where the Quicksilver catamaran was moored. The day was chilly, but the water was warm and many people went snorkeling.

Inland in the Atherton Tablelands at Lake Barrine the group took a short cruise and I saw white cormorants, darters (members of the cormorant family) and other birds.

One morning our group had breakfast at the Billabong Sanctuary, near Townsville, beside a lake crowded with water fowl. There I was able to hold a koala. He had thick fur and smelled of eucalyptus leaves, which he eats. He turned his head and kissed me!

I could have held a wombat but simply enjoyed looking at this heavy, furry creature. A saltwater crocodile show, a standard at most animal parks, was not as interesting to me as the aggressive emu that was stalking the park and the kangaroos lounging around.

Island hopping

Hamilton Island, our next stop, required precautions. When you are not in your room the silver-crested cockatoos will fly in if the door to your balcony is open. Often they would fly near the balcony to see if the door was open and whether anyone was around.

Flocks of rainbow lorikeets and a black heron were my sightings on an early morning walk to Hideaway Bay. Hamilton Island has excellent walking trials and a trial map to guide you.

A trip to Whitehaven Beach on nearby Whitsunday Island netted me a large sea turtle sighting. Yachts were moored in the clear water and a seaplane carrying swimmers landed there.

A few days later we traveled to Fraser Island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The 75-mile-long island features natural sand with a rainforest growing out it. A freshwater creek flows on top of the sand, as the sand is saturated with fresh water from the extensive underground aquifer that runs down the island.

On the way to Lake McKenzie, a freshwater lake on Fraser Island we sighted a dingo, a wild dog. The dingoes on Fraser Island are 98% purebred because of the island's isolation. The dingo came to Australia centuries ago, brought by seafarers in the South Sea.

A whale-watching tour went up the west coast of Fraser Island in the Hervey Bay Marine Park. Humpback whales, once decimated to only 300, have made a comeback and now number 2,000 along the eastern coast of Australia with another thousand along the western coast

Part of their migration takes them into Hervey Bay, where they. stop to feed. Two subadults found our boat fascinating and played and breached around it. A mother and calf were sighted, but they were not interested in the boat and we saw them from a distance. Then two other whales were sighted and one, a large one, came over to look at the boat.

Dolphins played in the waters as we went along the west coast of Fraser Island.

The Fraser Island resort is set in the forest and a crossbill came into the dining room for breakfast both mornings of my stay! Many mornings during the trip I awoke to bird calls. Throughout the trip I could count only one stopover that was not within walking distance of the ocean.

More fascinating wildlife

A day or two later found our group at the Australia Zoo, the home of, crocodile hunter Steve Irwin. The zoo is spacious and well kept, and added the Tasmanian devil to my list of animals. He's a fierce-looking, small black animal that Was pacing back and forth in his cage. I also saw more koalas, these with babies, plus a cassowary and kookaburras.

At Byron Bay Lighthouse I watched osprey fish from the cliffs.

Our next stop was a resort in Coffs Harbor, home of The Big Banana theme park, where kangaroos hopped around the golf course. At Port Macquarie several dolphins swam in the channel.

The kookaburras with their raucous laugh fascinated me. After the tour was over, I stayed on in Sydney and, took, a day trip to the Blue Mountains. Our guide stopped at a small park to fix us morning tea, and the kookaburras filled the forest with their laughter. Dennis, the guide with Australian Wild Escapes, had grown up in the Blue Mountains and took our party of two to various lookouts.

At one lookout we saw red-tailed. black cockatoos. Dennis told us to listen when we were at one of the, lookouts, and we could hear tiny bells ringing in the trees far below. These were the "bell birds."

For lunch, Dennis grilled steak and sausage and served a fall meal with red wine. Visitors were green parrots other bright birds and a magpie that wouldn't stop talking in an unknown language.

Late in the day we walked within a few feet of kangaroos, including two mothers with joeys in their pouches. And in the fading light we saw silver-crested cockatoos that acted as though they were drunk, swirling and twirling, doing acrobatics.

There were a few animals I hadn't seen yet, so I went to Taronga Zoo. Sydney's zoo is reached by ferry from the Circular Quay. A zoo pass and ferry ride cost Aus $28.40, or about US$17.

I arrived early in the morning and noticed steam rising from a hollow log in the echidna's enclosure. After a few minutes, a very sleepy echidna emerged and began to shuffle around its pen. Later in the morning the duck-billed platypus, unseen earlier, also became active in its watery tank and swam around.

Many other Australian animals and birds are at the Taronga Zoo. One enclosure had small birds, including a clamorous wren with quite a repertoire. Another area was filled with various cockatoos and parrots.

Sightings weren't over for, on my last afternoon, I saw trees full of flying foxes, or bats, in the Royal Botanic Gardens. And a sign assured me that errant ibis, nuisances at the gardens restaurant, were being banded and watched.

Contact info

* Australian Wild Escapes, P.O. Box 172, West Pennant Hills, New South Wales 2125, Australia; phone 61 02 9980 8788 or visit www.australianwildescapes.com

* AAT Kings Tours, 26 Redden Street, Cairns, Queenland, 4870, Australia; phone 1300 556 100.

* Qantas Vacations, 300 Continental Blvd., Ste. 610, El Segundo, CA 90245; phone 800/641-8772.

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