One night out wombatting

By KAREN GOA


Wombat. As with many Australian natives, even the name is hilarious. "Wombats are the hobbits of the Australian bush, living underground and perceived as lazy and unadventurous," notes James Woodford in his book The Secret Life of Wombats.

A Big Bend By Night evening tour is a chance to check out these nocturnal marsupial-hobbits on their own turf. David LeBrun and daughter Mardi take tourists wombat and kangaroo spotting on Sunnydale Station, the LeBruns' sheep and alfalfa farm northeast of Adelaide at Swan Reach.

Of the three wombat types in Australia - the common wombat, and northern and southern hairy nose - it's the southern hairy nose we're on the hunt for tonight.

The road from our accommodation to Sunnydale Station passes through an arid wasteland of spiky spinifex grasses and stunted saltbush. David stops the van in the middle of the road - there's a shingleback lizard basking on the warm tarmac.

Carefully he collects the plump, stumpy-tailed creature in both hands and shows it off through the window. The reptilephobe in our group catapults out the opposite door and doesn't reappear until the lizard is returned safely to the other side of the road.

At Sunnydale Station eucalypts and other fine-boned trees green up the scenery along the Murray River. Across the river the sinking sun tints the sandstone Nildottie Cliffs from pale apricot to deep terracotta. Sulphur crested cockatoos squawk in and out of nesting holes dug into the cliffs in semi-detached apartment style. Pelicans trawl for a fish dinner on tangerine waves.

It's an idyllic and peaceful scene, broken only when the lizard-loathing tourist recovers enough to bounce a hearty Otago rugby cheer off the echoing cliffs.

We walk back up the bank through knee-high fields of yellow and white "egg and bacon" flowers and pile into a "bushwhacker" - a windowless four-wheel-drive with a hole cut in the roof. We are wrapped up to the eyeballs with blankets, once the sun sets it's a pinchingly cold spring night. But there's a sky full of stars above us, and wombats out there somewhere.

Bouncing along a dirt track, David points out twinkly dots of light in the grass. Glow-worms, I think. Spiders' eyes, says David. Spiders' eyes? Just how big are these spiders? The eyes, we're told, belong to the 5cm-long, ground-dwelling trap door spider - not an Aussie uberspider but still plenty big enough to keep me seated firmly in the bushwhacker.

Another few minutes along - huzzah, there's a wombat. I'm stunned. I hadn't done my wombat homework. Wombats are not, as I'd imagined, the size of an obese guinea pig. This one's the girth and length of a kunekune pig, snub-nosed and sweet-faced, held a few inches off the ground on stubby fat legs and equipped with industrial-strength claws. The hole that he's standing over is large enough to crash a car.

The wombat flees the scene at an impressively ripping pace for a giant sausage on legs - wombats can do the 100m dash in less than 10 seconds. This makes keeping up with them over the bouncy terrain a challenge. The wombat dives down its capacious burrow and isn't seen again.

Wombat burrows are big enough for a person to crawl down but it's a trick not advisable for the average tourist.

Though they don't look particularly clever, wombats use their thick skin and a plate of bone and cartilage on their backs to sneak up under interlopers and squash them against the burrow roof, according to Woodford's book. Lizards, deadly snakes and wild dogs like to chill out in wombat homes, too.

Our chances of seeing another wombat are high - about 100 wombats live on Sunnydale Station. Moments later the spotlight freezes another one on the lip of its burrow. The wombat looks at us. We look at it, admiring its silvery grey fur, piggy waistline and trademark whiskery snout.

Another couple of wombat chasings later and it's time to head back - David has promised us a warming drop of port. On the return trip mobs of Red and Western Grey Kangaroos - dozens of them - do a lolloping line dance through the spinifex.

At the LeBruns' home we get a closer kangaroo view. David and wife Janet are members of a native animal care programme and are foster parents to orphan kangaroos Blossom, Boxer and Jackie, and Watson the wombat. The kangaroos bongo around their enclosure, acting like juveniles everywhere, sulking, boxing each other and smooching their foster parents.

Watson is coyer. He snuffles happily around the dirt pen he shares with a companionable white rabbit. But when we approach he darts toward his plastic culvert burrow - like all wombats, he can dive in and "seal his home with an impenetrable posterior" (Woodford again).

This is my best chance to get hands on with a wombat and I'm not going to let him bolt. I coax Watson back with flattery - "How handsome a wombat you are! How svelte!" It works a treat. He stops in mid-bolt, cocks a pointy ear and trots back to his bowl of alfalfa pellets. As he nibbles I scratch his flat, furry head, pat his armoured rump and contemplate a new career - wombat whisperer.

* Karen Goa was hosted by the South Australian Tourism Commission.

WHEN TO GO

Tours operate year round.

COSTS

$AUS50 per person includes evening tour and return transfers from Barossa Valley, Murraylands and Adelaide. Murray River houseboats booking the tour can moor on the Sunnydale Station site. Afternoon/evening tours with dinner cost $AUS80 per person.

HOW TO BOOK

David and Mardi LeBrun
Big Bend By Night
Swan Reach, South Australia
Ph 0061 8 8570 1097

Email lebrun@lm.net.au

On the web

Murray River