The fuzzy lawnmowers in question are wombats. Narawntapu National Park must be the best spot in the world for these chunky marsupials, we could see a half-dozen without going more than twenty paces from the car park. They’re lovely animals to watch as well, because they’ll allow you to approach within about ten yards before they decide you’re near enough and shuffle into a surprisingly efficient trot. Can’t believe we were so excited getting a glimpse of one on our night drives at Mountain Valley Wilderness.
Mind you, that kind of thing happens often enough with wildlife. People spend a whole weekend trying to see one of the handful of ospreys which now nest on Rutland Water back home in England. In Florida we saw them perched on people’s TV aerials and nesting on telegraph poles.
Local knowledge is also critical in finding wildlife. We searched in a half-dozen places known to have Cape Clawless otters all over South Africa without seeing one, yet Simon at Indri Tours who are based near Cape Town reckons next time we’re in South Africa he can take us to a couple of spots where Cape Clawless are practically guaranteed. Funnily enough, the Spotted Necked otters which we got several superb views of in South Africa are reckoned to be much harder to find than Cape Clawless. C’est la vie.
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I had to look up Narawntapu National Park as I have never heard of it. I do wish the powers that be would consult me before they changed the names of things, I know it as the Asbestos Ranges. I found that a lot when I came back, things had just changed names!
Haha. Yes, there’s a tendancy everywhere in the world (SA, NZ, Aus, India, Wales) to try and make reparations for a brutal colonial history by allowing place names to revert back to the original native ones. It’s pretty feeble, really.