Strange Creatures

Millions of years ago, the continents of the Earth were all joined together to form one big land-mass. One of the first to break off and drift away was the land we now call Australia. Animals there developed separately from the rest of the world, which is why Australian animals are like no others.

Most Australian mammals are of a kind called ‘marsupials’. That means their young aren’t fully developed at birth, but must spend time in a pouch in their mother’s body.

The best known is, of course, the kangaroo, often shown in pictures and cartoons with the head of the young kangaroo, or ‘joey’, peering from Mother’s pouch. Other marsupials include wallabies, wombats and koalas … sometimes called ‘koala bears’, although they aren’t bears; they just look like them.

The first animals to arrive which weren’t marsupials (they’re called ‘placentals’) were seals and sea-lions, followed by Man and his dogs; nobody knows how they arrived, for, as far as we know, Australian Aborigines never learnt to build boats capable of making the sea crossing.

Most placental mammals arrived with European settlers. Cattle, pigs, horses and sheep arrived first, but rabbits, introduced to provide cheap food for the convicts sent to Australia from England, destroyed much.

In Europe and America, animals preying on rabbits control their numbers. In Australia, there weren’t enough such creatures, and the rabbit population increased dramatically, and caused serious damage to wildlife and the environment.

Foxes were brought in 150 years ago, by one stupid farmer, who wanted to hunt them with hounds, as he had in England. They, too, spread enough to endanger many kinds of Australian animals.

One place where rabbits and foxes were never introduced was Kangaroo Island, off the coast of South Australia. Here, you can see animals hard, or sometimes impossible to find anywhere else.

The Flinders Chase National Park covers 32,600 hectares of bush-land in the south-western corner of the island. Entry is by permit, which can be bought at the Park entrance at Rocky River.

There are several easy, clear, waymarked walking trails, and this is a good way to introduce the young and the inexperienced to what Australians call ‘bushwalking’. There’s much to see besides wildlife … although there’s enough of that to prevent the walk from being just a boring trudge. That’s only a fraction of what’s there, though Most Australian wildlife is either nocturnal or reclusive – or both.

Probably the Park’s best-known feature is the Remarkable Rocks. These are huge granite boulders on an exposed headland, which the elements have sculpted into fantastic shapes. Not far away lies Cape du Couédic, with its spectacular lighthouse standing amid weathered limestone rocks covered in wild flowers. Nearby are the two outlying Casaurina Islets – which will become three in a few millennia, when the wave-worn Admiral’s Arch, below the lighthouse, collapses. Meantime, it offers safe refuge for New Zealand Fur Seals to bask, and be observed from a respectful distance.

In pools in Rocky River, you may find the strangest creature of all, the Platypus. When early explorers brought home the first stuffed specimens of the platypus, the Royal Zoological Society thought they were playing a joke.

Here was a furry animal, which suckled its young like a mammal … but laid eggs. It had webbed feet, like a water-bird, and a long snout, resembling a duck’s bill. And, it had something no other mammal, and no bird has … a poisonous spur on its legs. For many years, scientists thought they had found the ‘missing link’ between mammals, birds and reptiles. Such animals, which lay eggs, but suckle their young, are called ‘monotremes’.

Unfortunately, we didn’t see any platypuses in Rocky River. The Park Ranger said they usually come out at night, and recent rain flooding the river meant they would be difficult to see by day.

But, we did see another monotreme, digging for ants with its long snout by the roadside. The echidna looks like a porcupine … except that it lays eggs. That made it definitely the Strangest Creature of our trip.

Even in the main towns of Penneshaw, the ferry port, or Kingscote, the island’s administrative centre, you can still spot wildlife. There are Penguin burrows close to both towns. Penguins only return to the burrows at night, when access is not allowed except in the company of a Ranger. You can go on your own by day … the burrows are just uninteresting holes in the bank, but there’s a slim chance you’ll see the odd penguin who doesn’t read notices!

If you’re staying in Penneshaw, I recommend the Penguin Stop Café for a meal. It’s built on stilts, and, sometimes, when the penguins come ashore at night, they get under the café and peck on the floor!

However, I’m not sure I approve of the daily feeding of the pelicans and cormorants at Penneshaw … in my opinion, it’s degrading for the birds, and if they need feeding, I suspect there’s something wrong somewhere. But, it enables even a layman with the cheapest camera to get close enough to get some really good pictures.