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I was really lucky to be heading off once again to Australia back in February, with a highlight being the trip to the states of Victoria and Tasmania with Wildlife Worldwide. It's always fantastic exploring these magnificent parts of this vast country, searching out some of the most iconic wildlife Australia has on offer. Flying into Melbourne, we had a couple of days around Geelong, where we were able to focus our efforts on a number of different mammals and birds. My group had a great time photographing the emus of Serendip Sanctuary, while we were lucky with a number of other local residents.    After a fabulous few days exploring some of the wonderful places around Geelong, we headed back to Melbourne for our flight across the Bass Strait to Launceston in Tasmania. We had 10-days to explore the magnificent wildlife and landscapes of this incredible island. Lost in time, Tasmania still supports a number of species that are now hard to find on the mainland, while there's also a few endemic birds to enjoy. I hope you enjoy the selection of imagery, it really is a wonderful place and I urge you to discover it for yourself.    As you can see, we struck gold with the two monotreme (egg-laying mammal) species found in Tasmania - the platypus and the short-beaked echidna. Meanwhile, the birdlife was pretty exceptional too.     Australia is rightly famed for its diverse array of marsupials. It is safe to say we were not disappointed with the sightings or photographic opportunities of these iconic mammals.       It's also worth mentioning that the landscapes of Tasmania are pretty exceptional and we were blessed with some amazing weather - particularly up at Cradle Mountain ...  If you'd like to find out more, or join me on one of these photographic tours, please do get in touch. Alternatively, please visit the Wildlife Worldwide website to find out more.
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I absolutely love being in the Antipodes as the wildlife here is not only unique, but it is utterly captivating, and so it was a delight to head back and spend another couple of weeks searching for and photographing some icons. Just as we did in the previous trip, we started on the mainland of Australia, photographing wildlife in the state of Victoria, before flying across the Bass Strait to Tasmania. Around the city of Geelong, we enjoyed photographing a wealth of wildlife including corellas, emu, eastern grey kangaroo, grey-headed flying fox and koala too.     After a fantastic few days photographing the wild delights of the mainland, including some Australian oddities, we hopped on a plane from Melbourne down to the city of Launceston in Tasmania. From here we headed to the Tasmania arboretum for some great platypus sightings and photography.  We then headed up into the hills and spent the next five days just immersing ourselves in the wild world of Tasmania's rugged mountains. Here photographic highlights included tiger snake, wombat, wallabies and several endemic birds.    We headed back down from Tasmania's Highlands back down towards the coast and stopped once again at the Tasmanian Arboretum. We thought our previous visit was remarkable for the platypus encounters we enjoyed, but this time it was exceptional. The absolute highlight was a pair of platypus fighting after an attempt at mating.    Over the next few days we continued by exploring the north-east of Tasmania, enjoying more wonderful photography opportunities including Forrester's kangaroos.    After a great period photographing in the northern reaches of Tasmania, it was time to head south towards Hobart. We spent an evening in Hobart, primarily as a rest stop, before heading over to Bruny Island the following day. Here, we would be staying close to the Inala property and our hope was to photograph some of the region's iconic birdlife including the forty-spotted pardalote.    As you can see, we had a magical couple of weeks photographing some of Australia's most sought-after species. It was great to be back in the bush and seeing some of my favourite Aussie wildlife.
Coming towards the end of our amazing road trip meant heading back northwards. We would end up going back up the east coast we now know relatively well. We will be saying goodbye to friends along the way but first there were a few more destinations we wanted to visit. In New South Wales far south, is the coastal town of Narooma. My girlfriend and I fell in love with Narooma and its beautiful watery lifestyle. Amazing beaches, a crystal clear tidal lagoon and some noisy locals all made it it one of our favourite spots. By noisy locals, I don't mean the human inhabitants, instead I am talking about the small population of Australian Fur Seals. We spent an afternoon watching these playful and rather characterful individuals, only wishing we had more time spend with them and this beautiful setting.     After leaving Narooma we headed on, northwards up the eastern seaboard of New South Wales. This meant we were heading past one of my favourite places in Australia. I have already mentioned and highlighted Kangaroo Valley on this blog but I had to pop in once more and catch up with the Wombats. There was one particularly obliging and inquisitive individual but it was a little on the skinny side. It wasn't just the wombats that knew how to pose of the camera, a Kookaburra that seemed to be completely at ease around people, posed perfectly on a fence post as I snapped away.     The next stop is Sydney so you will have check back here to see what adventures I had in a city I know quite well.
Having travelled down the New South Wales coastline it was time to head inland on this last part of our Aussie adventure. Our first stop was in the rural town of Goulburn, there wasn't much in the way of wildlife there but we had heard of a place called Kangaroo Valley. This, as you might expect, is a valley home to plenty of Kangaroos but it wasn't these critters we were after. We had also heard that the valley was home to a thriving population of Wombats. Up until now we hadn't found any wombats so we really hoped that we might be in luck ... we certainly were as you can see below!  Wombat  Wombat We then headed further inland, across the Hay Plain towards the farming town of Mildura in northern Victoria. This is one of Australia's fruit growing capitals but nearby is the remote Mungo National Park. We headed out early on morning driving off the main highway onto a gravel road, an incredibly long gravel road of nearly 100 kms. After a few hours, we finally arrived at this wild landscape in search of the Red Kangaroo. This was the only chance on our trip to Australia that we might see this incredible desert survivor, so we had to make the effort. We struck gold, not only seeing the Red Kangaroos but also the Western Grey Kangaroos and wild Emus.  Red Kangaroos in Mungo NP  Emu in Mungo NP  Emu  Western Grey Kangaroo The next leg of the inland part of our journey took us across another state border to South Australia. We followed the Murray River from Mildura towards the riverside town of Mannum. Nestled right on the edge of the winding river it was a bird-watcher's paradise with a very obliging community of Brush-tailed Possums just to top it off. The possums were fantastic and we loved the mother with her young baby, the images just don't really show the difference in their size. The next morning we awoke to a valley full of a thick mist and I knew I had to go to the waters edge and see what subjects I could find. The Black Swans and the Galahs were just superb and so cooperative, it was a truly magical morning.  Brush-tailed Possum with baby  Young Brush-tailed Possum  Black Swan at dawn  Galahs warming up in the morning sun  Black Swan in the mist over the Murray River  The next part of our journey is to the magnificent Kangaroo Island so come back soon and check it out!
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