Overview – Family Wildlife Hunts Under the Queensland Moon
Words and Photos: Elvin and Eshlyn Pal
Whilst on a trip to the Far North Queensland area, we were eager to tick off a few rare and elusive Aussie animals off our wishlist of wild animal encounters. Right at the top of our list was spotting a tree-kangaroo. While there are 13 species of tree-kangaroos, only two are found in Australia. They both reside in Far North Queensland. The Bennett’s tree-kangaroo is found north of the Daintree River. The Lumholtz’s tree-kangaroo is found further south. The remaining species are found in Papua New Guinea.
In the Daintree
We spent a couple of days in the Daintree Rainforest, eagerly scanning the trees as we drove through the rainforest clad roads. With eyes fixated on the trees above, it made us appreciate how awe inspiring this special place is. Here, the World Heritage-listed rainforest meets the World Heritage-listed coral reef. After no luck spotting one in the Daintree, we moved south to the Atherton Tablelands. We based ourselves there for a stint of work and to continue the hunt for the ever-elusive tree-kangaroo.
Reported Sightings
As luck would have it, the Atherton area is a hotspot for tree-kangaroos. After chatting to the local information centre and fellow travellers at the caravan park, we were told many stories of sightings. We were also given tips on places, times, and even exact trees where they had been recently spotted. This gave us a much-needed boost in confidence and reassurance that at least we were in the right areas.
Where to Go?
Many evenings were spent walking and looking, mostly around Yungaburra, at Petersons Creek, Curtain Fig Tree and Malanda. However, we still were not able to catch a glimpse of our prize. Although our efforts were not entirely in vain as we did catch glimpses of a variety of other cool Aussie animals. These were just as elusive. They included quite a few Platypus, bandicoots, possums, a Boyd’s Forest dragon and even a leaf tailed gecko!
At the same time, we got to spend quality family time. We also made some new friends who are just as keen and enthusiastic about animal encounters as ourselves.
Lifelong Lessons
These outings were also a wonderful way of learning and teaching more about these incredible Aussie fauna. With plenty of information signs and follow-up research, it made up a part of the boys’ homeschooling activities.
We made trips out at all different times of the day and night. However, we found the nighttime trips to be the most enjoyable and most productive, at least for other animal sightings. We have even been lucky enough to meet some animal spotting tour guides whilst out and about. They have all been great to chat with and freely share information and findings with us.
…To Be Continued?
Even with all the wealth of knowledge we now possess, we are still fruitless in our quest to spot the ever-elusive tree-kangaroo. After our talks with the tour guides, we have learnt that even for them, tree-kangaroo sightings are still a rare occurrence. They average one a year. They are notoriously hard to spot for even researchers tracking them with radio collars.
Given our curiosity and inability to locate a wild one, we did the next best thing. We headed out to Rainforestation to go to see Jimmy, their resident Lumholtz Tree kangaroo! Finally we got to see one!
