Yesterday at the park our Melbourne friends told us about the Platypus house. We have seen almost every single Australian animal but the Platypus has alluded us. They are near impossible to see outside of Australia (even in captivity) so today was our last chance. We drove 45 minutes through rain and arrived at the not-very-scenic platypus house. It’s right next door to seahorse world, of course.

The only way in was to pay for the full guided tour. We paid and waited for the 2pm tour to set off. There was one other family but the rest of the 15 person group were boomer couples. Everywhere we have been in Tasmania has been full of retirees. My favorites today were an old lesbian couple named Deb & Suze. If you imagine an early 60s lesbian couple, that was them. They bought matching “not another bill” platypus shirts.

We had a great guide who taught us lots of crazy things about platypi. I think they might be my new favorite animal. Here are some facts:

• A male platypus is highly venomous and stings via spikes in their back paws. It is extremely painful and the pain lasts for 3 months. It has no anti venom or treatment. One woman had to be in a medically induced coma for months as pain treatment!
• The males are highly territorial and kill each other. So there is usually one male per 20 females.
• Their back feet are on backwards
• They can’t see or hear underwater and find their food with electroreception
• They can slow their heartbeat down from 200 bpm to 10 bpm to preserve energy underwater. But they are very buoyant so to stay underwater they need to wedge themselves under something heavy.
• They are iridescent and glow turquoise under a black light
• They don’t have teeth or stomach acid. They grind their food up with a “grinding plate” in their mouth.
• They feed their babies milk like a mammal but they don’t have nipples. Instead it comes out of their pores like sweat and the babies lick it up! So nasty.
• They are monotremes, which is Latin for “one hole” which is exactly what you pervs might imagine it means.

There’s more but those are the ones I remember. Come for the travel diaries, stay for the plat facts.

My terrible photos below are of Jupiter, the largest platypus ever measured. He is 19 years old.

After watching these weird little creatures for a while, we were brought into the Echidna room. We all sat around on stools and watched the echidnas eating. Then they walked around our feet. Echidnas are also monotremes and almost as bizarre as the platypi.

We drove back to Launceston and Millie had her very predictable cycle of whine to silence to passing out.

We had planned to go back to yesterday’s playground, but it was too rainy. So instead we had a late lunch / early dinner at Boag’s Brewhouse. This brewery has been in operation since 1881 and had a whole exhibit about the history of the brewery. We got a giant charcuterie board and a taster of the beers.

On our way home we stopped to fill up the car so that we are ready to return it tomorrow. It was $150! Hybrids from here on out.

At home Millie and Nick had Sunday movie night (Shrek 2) while I did some work on the computer.

Tomorrow we leave Australia. This has been our longest stop over on the whole trip, clocking in at 43 days. We’ve really loved it.