We had a couple of days in Stanley, a laid-back cute fishing town at the bottom of a 150m high volcanic formation affectionately known as ‘The Nut’. You can climb to the top of the Nut or take the chairlift and 80,000 pairs of Shearwaters nest here every year. (Sorry no pics, very rainy the day we climbed it.)
We signed up for a Duck-billed Platypus Tour with the local ‘Wilderness to West Coast Tours’ and we had a brilliant time with our guide Peter. A big male called Frederick has a harem of 4 females in a set of connecting dams on private land nearby and so he can virtually guarantee a sighting. Platypus (like the Echidna) are monotremes – mammals that lay eggs and we learned that baby platypus are called Puggles/Puggels (not sure of the spelling). The male Platypus have poison spurs on their hind legs which cause paralysis (and death to other platypus). Peter told us that some guys who stopped to help an injured platypus on the road got spiked and were hospitalized. It apparently took 12 months for one of the guys to regain the use of his arm again!
Then we went on to the Little Penguin rookery at the base of the Nut and we could wander among the burrows with red-tinted torches to see the huge chicks waiting for the parents to come home and feed them.
