Me - 1, Platypus - 0

Trip Start Nov 07, 2005
1
15
75
Trip End Nov 04, 2006


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Flag of Australia  ,
Thursday, January 19, 2006

Our next stop took us (an no one else) to a place called Mackay. The sign said "Welcome to Mackay - the Heart of Queensland". It seemed promising. So the fact that the bus driver announced the stop with such disdain, and that were were the only two to depart, seemed like the sign might be a bit of an exaggeration. The city is certainly full of itself but I didn't spend long enough there to see if its rightly arrogant. The tourist office is loaded with guides on things to do - visit the cemetary, stop at the hotel for some mango ice cream, go to the sugar cane factory - all amazing suggestions, but the only thing we were interested in was catching a glimpse of the elusive platypus.

If you don't know what a platypus is then google it. Its a freak of nature, but cute with it.

So we hired what seemed to be the only hire car left in the city (the sugar cane industry must be booming with tourism) and ventured off the beaten track onto the dirt track, hoping not to invalidate our lack of insurance by driving on bumpy roads The elusive platypus
The elusive platypus
 .

Apparently Broken River at Eungella National Park is one of the best places to view platypus but I didn't have my hopes up cos they're notoriously shy. So we set up camp amongst the wallabies and ventured off to the river. I was prepared to spend the next 2 days sitting there waiting for one of the cuddly freaks to surface but we saw one almost straight away. Several photos later I wondered what the hell we were going to do now for the next 2 days since that had been my only objective of the visit.

It was a great opportunity to catch up on all the sleep we were deprived of on Fraser Island.
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