Bird, Fish, Mammal or Reptile?

This one is for you, Charlie Hare. We thought you might like to tell your school friends about one of the strangest Australian animals we encountered this week. This was one of our most exciting wildlife encounters so far.

We went to a small town called Geeveston, south of Hobart, because we’d seen its only sushi restaurant on one of Rick Stein’s TV shows. The sushi was every bit as good as Rick Stein said especially sea urchin roe, the dish of the day.

After we’d eaten our fill, we decided to explore the town and discovered the platypus walk and lookout. We didn’t really expect to see any and were really excited when a local man pointed out some bubbles and concentric circles of ripples in the water. We waited and watched and finally our patience was rewarded. We saw two platypuses swimming up and down the river. They are bizarre creatures, but very cute.

If you’d like to learn more about these strange but wonderful animals, here’s a photo of the information board in Geeveston.