Wild about wildlife!

Sure, we’re big dog lovers back home, but the other animals in our daily lives don’t have a ton of appeal. We might comment on a pretty blue jay, a particularly daring squirrel or a large family of racoons, but these passing comments are nothing compared to the hours we’ve devoted to talking about, photographing and tracking down wildlife on this trip.

In New Zealand we saw lots of birds.

Fields of sheep.

Amazing sea lions.

Dolphins.

And these awesome little blue penguins.

It was all pretty magical.

But, then we got to Australia. And wow. We discovered the one category in which Australia has New Zealand beat: wildlife.

These guys are everywhere.

And they have cousins in all different sizes. Wallabies and Pademelons are most common, and we’re never quite sure which are which. (The locals don’t seem super clear on it either. )

These guys are Jay’s favorite. (thankfully, even the smaller ones aren’t quite carry-on sized)

And Potaroos. Like giant mice. But cute!

Koalas are pretty awesome too.

We’ve also seen a lot of sheep – particularly in Tasmania.

And though I’m no fan of birds, the flightless ones are ok… we’ve seen a lot of Emus.

And lots of Cockatoos who have pretty cool hats.

And we’ve had some pretty rare sightings too.

We didn’t expect to see Echidnas. And this guy just waddled up along the side of the road.

And Wombats!! I barely believed these existed, and then we were practically tripping over them. So cute!!

While these goats and chickens aren’t uniquely Australian, Jay really enjoyed getting acquainted with them.

Also on this farm, we had this arachnid encounter.

And you may recall this guy from our recent hike

Considering how many animals can kill you in this country, our ‘friend to foe’ ratio seems solid, but not without a couple terrifying encounters.

With just a couple weeks to go, the only animals left on our ‘Australian animal bingo card’ are Tasmanian Devils and Dingos. Happy to see neither of these in the wild, but looking forward to supervised visitation at an animal sanctuary in a few days.

Oh, and we’re staying on a farm that notes a resident platypus in their stream for the next couple nights. I’m unsure those really exist either, so not holding my breath. Will let you all know.

More tails from the road coming soon!