Finding Australia's Big 5

 

I'm still thinking about the merits and pitfalls of my unusual strategy when I went to Australia last year. I thought about the animals I most wanted to photograph and then planned my trip around them: fruit bats, cassowaries, koalas and platypus. Normally, I just go to a park or forest and photograph whatever I find even as I hope to get my lens on something special that I know lives there. So it was a big gamble. Could I do it? What would I sacrifice by being so selective? Was I doomed to fail?

My stay in Sydney was cut short by a day unexpectedly when I assured Delta Airlines that I didn't need a visa to visit Australia and Australia said I was sorely mistaken, mate. And here I thought we were friends, Australia. But the rainy morning I arrived I went straightaway to the enormous and lovely Centennial Park in the heart of Sydney and set about looking for the bat colony. The first groundskeepers I spoke to said they were new to the job and didn't know where to find the gray-headed flying foxes. But after an hour of looking around and harassing strangers, I tracked them down. Success!

That night I stayed in the suburb of Parramatta so I could see more of these amazing flying mammals at Parramatta Park the next day. This was a target-rich environment with bats on both sides of the river trying to nap away the day while their neighbors squabbled on nearby branches.

Bats constantly swooped overhead and sailed across the river, providing great looks in the dreary washed out sky. I could have spent the rest of the day there but I had to head back to catch my flight to Cairns. Still, I was off to a promising start!

Cassowaries are incredible animals in a place full of incredible animals. And while they are found in coastal rainforests across Queensland, I thought my best chance might be at Mission Beach, a resort town a couple hours south of Cairns. My uncle, a far-better birder than I am, predicted they would be trash birds, so easy to find that it was ridiculous of me to give it a second thought. I was skeptical. I had seen videos of cassowaries photobombing beachgoers and interrupting picnickers. But I suspected that was the exception. I only budgeted a few days to find one, so I immediately set about looking.

There were several inviting trails around Mission Beach that were a lot of fun to explore. I found tantalizing evidence of cassowaries in the numerous poo piles. But after two days, there were no signs of cassowaries.

While tooling around Mission Beach, I noticed that wallabies would venture into some of the farm fields in the evenings. So after dinner I made a beeline to the southern edge of town to photograph them in good light. I began photographing Arnold Schwarzenroo here with my long lens out my driver's side window, which I should point out is on the wrong side of the car, when a movement through the windshield caught my attention. Holy crap, that's a cassowary!

A beautiful male cassowary ducked out of the thick scrub and began foraging in the grassy median next to the road. It's called the world's most dangerous bird because it can kick like an ostrich with claws designed for disembowelment. But face to face, that reputation seemed overdone as this murder chicken stalked the road edge like a bored convict doing community service.

The cassowary strolled past, giving me a great chance for a portrait before he disappeared in the rainforest. There was no following the bird through that thick tangle of undergrowth (I tried) but it didn't matter. I was stoked. And with just 4,000 birds ... wait.

Australia, you only have 4,000 of these things? Why aren't cassowaries populating every park in Queensland? There should be so many cassowaries that you have to look past the cassowaries to see the cassowaries you came to see. The diners of Wongaling Beach — yeah, that's a real place — should offer cassowary omelettes with your choice of fixings. What are you waiting for, Australia? 

The next day it was off to Townsend to catch a ferry to Magnetic Island. It's one of the best places in Queensland to find koalas because it's one of the surprisingly few places in Queensland to find koalas. This laid-back beach resort is my kind of place. I spent most of my adult life in Cape May, New Jersey, so I love the coastal vibe here. The people were friendly, the restaurants were great and the scenery is incredible everywhere you go.

Koalas are scattered in forests across the island, but the place most people look is the Forts Trail that takes you up into the wooded hills overlooking the Coral Sea. And sure enough after a 30-minute walk, I found my first koala sleeping in a tree branch just over the trail. This big sleepy male koala was unbothered by the tourists who shared his path.

He only roused when a distant male koala would roar and he was obliged to roar back before immediately resting his head and going back to sleep. Koalas make a guttural, bellowing sound that you can feel in your chest like the engines of stock cars at Daytona. Steven Spielberg used koala bellows to create the roar of his Tyrannosaurus rex, so it was fun to hear this chortling bellow up close.

The next morning, I went back to the Forts Trail. The male was gone from his branch so I continued up the trail higher into the hills. On a wooded ridge I found a mama koala sleeping with a bundle of fur buried in her belly in front of her. A baby koala! I had my long lens with me so I copped a squat in the shade a good distance away, while keeping an eye out for danger noodles, to see if I could get a peek at her baby as she slept. Four hours later, neither had moved an inch. Koalas can sleep 22 out of every 24 hours, which is pretty impressive for someone who wears out his snooze button. Koalas must have epic dreams, probably of using their opposable claws to bludgeon to death weirdos who spend hours watching them sleep. You're still here? What could possibly be so interesting?

I was hot and out of water, so I went back to my hotel to get some food and get out of the sun. When I returned that evening, the mom slept three hours more while I waited before rousing for a few minutes and I was able to get a quick look at her bouncing baby girl. 

The baby's big brother was mostly independent but hung out in a nearby tree. And this portrait turned out to be my favorite pic of the trip. We have a big invasive species problem in the United States and I just don't know why it's not from koalas. As Mitch Hedberg said, it would be the cutest infestation ever. 

I encountered another koala on the hike down and was able to get a quick photo of a wakeful koala in the 17 seconds it took for him to find a more comfortable position to sleep. I thought I was a professional napper until I met koalas. But success! I was truly charmed by these incredible animals. Goodonya, Australia! Or whatever.

Along the Forts Trail, I spied this little quill pig. The echidna incredibly is a mammal that lays eggs. Are you high, Mother Nature? These might be the most common mammals found in Australia, but since they are secretive and can be nocturnal in hot weather, they are not easy to find. This was the only one I would see in two weeks of exploring. But my trip wouldn't be complete until I found Australia's other egg-laying mammal, the platypus. So after taking the ferry back to the mainland, I was off to the Queensland interior: the Atherton Tablelands.

The Atherton Tablelands feature a high-elevation forest that is home to the tree kangaroo. I never expected to see one, despite all the many road signs warning of their crossings. They are rare. And true to their name, they live high in the tree canopy. But another photographer pointed out this one from the Malanda Falls Visitor Center! 

At Malanda Falls, I chatted with another hiker who had flown across the country just to look for tree kangaroos. And here he was staring at one before he had a chance to lock his car, ha. Incredible luck. But I was here for monotremes. So I hit the trails to look and look and look.

I explored the creeks around Yungaburra and Malanda Falls for two days in search of platypus. While hiking through the dappled rainforest along the creek, I spied this little kangaroo called a pademelon, which reminded me of the Creek episode of Bluey in which a surprise encounter with a pademelon teaches Bluey that, despite the mud and mosquitoes and leaches, the creek is beautiful. You're right, Bluey. The creek is beautiful.

A boardwalk wraps around an amazing curtain figtree in Yungaburra. Everyone I asked said Yungaburra was the place to look for platypus. But I wondered if they only said that because there is a huge platypus sign for a viewing hide there. The hide was a disappointment because it only looks out at a sliver of creek with no public access to explore it.

Defeated, I left the Atherton Tablelands and headed east to my last destination, the Daintree Rainforest north of Cairns, which also has cassowaries. It's the world's oldest rainforest. Reaching the Daintree required driving the Gillies Range Road. There are fun videos of this road's notorious 263 twists, hairpin turns and curves, but in my zero-fun-miles rental car, I found the road a little annoying. I needed a Lamborghini.

 

Another ferry takes you across the Daintree River where I explored the rainforest. I took a boat ride to look for saltwater crocodiles, which made me wonder why these apex predators didn't make my must-see list. After all, salties are one of Australia's most famous animals. And thanks to Steve Irwin, everyone including me loves them. But the rainforest itself was a photographic disappointment. Maybe because it was winter or because I wasn't being patient enough or looking in the right places, I struggled to get my lens on much of anything. So I decided to head back into the hills for one last chance of seeing a duck-billed platypus.

At Malanda Falls, I followed this scrub turkey through the woods until I met a nice couple who mentioned they had seen a platypus the previous day. I immediately prosecuted their sighting like Jack McCoy in Law and Order. Where did you find it?* What time of day was it? Did you see more than one? What was it doing? How far from the trailhead was it? Which side of the creek were you on? You photographed the trailhead? Can you airdrop me that picture? (*Actual conversation.) 

Fifteen minutes later, I photographed this little fellow. 

Platypus were just as amazing as I imagined. This little female mucked around the muddy bank looking for invertebrates with her eyes tightly closed to protect them from the silt she dug up with her flexible bill.

Allumbah Park is a tiny municipal park that is tended to by a large group of enthusiastic and knowledgeable retirees. The park features a sturdy steel walking bridge over the creek that is an impressive feat of engineering. The platypus see lots of people every day, so they were not the least bit bothered by me and my lens. I wanted to dance a jig, I was so happy.

I returned the next morning to spend some more time with the platypus before I had to catch my flight home in Cairns. I must have seen five platypus over the two days. It was such a privilege and seemed to cast the entire trip in a positive new light. What a sore disappointment it would have been to miss them. The idea that the entire trip would have been a bust because I didn't see a platypus is an absurd notion. And yet it probably would have felt true.

Looking back, I think I set myself up for failure by trying to photograph animals instead of places. Despite my perseverance, in the end it was simple luck that I succeeded. And that kind of pressure is counterproductive for any vacation. I much prefer to visit a place and surrender myself to whatever I'm lucky enough to find.  

There are, of course, untold wondrous animals to see in Australia. You could spend a lifetime there, as some people reportedly do, and never see them all. Nah, yeah, Australia. Nah, yeah.