BurbleChaz

We had a day of holiday to use up, so today was the start of a long weekend. After doing some admin stuff, we had a bite to eat at the QV foodcourt. I took some criticism for starting my daily food intake with beef vindaloo. It didn't go well with coffee.

After lunch, we fired up the Gas Guzzler and headed eastwards, leaving a belching cloud of emissions behind us. After an hour of raising the global temperature, we stopped at the summit of Mount Dandenong.

We walked through the forest for a couple of hours. I didn't spot anything worth mentioning. The Observant One found lots. Parrot-like birds with bright red plumage were everywhere. She found a tiny lizard as well. I was focussing on wombat fewmets (of which there were many), when The Best Observation Ever was made.

At the edge of the path, an echidna was rootling about. It was looking for a snack, and wasn't much perturbed by our resence. Once or twice, we got too close to it. Whenever it felt stressed, it tucked its snout onto its chest and hunkered down looking spiky. Afrer a few seconds, it would get up and start hunting worms again.

We watched it for about 30 minutes, before it did some serious climbing and moved out of sight. We were privileged to see it. Pictures here.