I think Australian wildlife gets a bit of a bad wrap. There is a reputation of Australian wildlife around the world that it will all kill you. This is only partially true. Most Australian wildlife can kill you, but for the most part it doesn't want to. There are very few things in Australia that will actively track you down and kill you, pretty much just salt-water crocodiles and great white sharks, if you stay out of their territory you'll be fine.
The rest of Australian wildlife is actually pretty cool. Most of it can be photographed pretty safely and some of it can even been approached with very little danger (I don't recommend this unless you know what you are doing though). As long as I've been taking photos, I've been working on photographing our unique wildlife.
While this photo wasn't taken on Rottnest Island, there is an island off the coast of Western Australia that is covered with these very friendly animals. The Quokka has been called the worlds happiest animal, many people take selfies with them, personally I'm not a fan of the idea because it interferes with how they naturally act. It isn't widely known that there are many populations of Quokkas on the mainland as well.
Lucky Bay near Esperance on the south coast of Western Australia has some of the whitest sand in the world, the beaches there are just incredible. What makes them even more incredible is that there is a population of kangaroos that live in the area and are quite happy to relax on the beach. It is an awesome area to camp.
Closer to home for me is a place called Hamelin Bay. It is a great place to go snorkelling as there is a good reef just offshore. The area is known for the very friendly stingrays that regularly beach themselves to be hand fed fish by visitors. They'll come right up to you if you are knee deep in the water.
Another favourite places to visit locally is a place called Donnelly River. It is an old logging town that has now been converted to a holiday camp grounds, the old huts are available to stay in and are quite comfortable. The wildlife there is so accustomed to people visiting that they come and interact with visitors all the time. There are Emus (a large flightless bird) and kangaroos, here are some photos from our last visit to the area.
Christmas Island will get its own entire post. It is the Galapagos island of Australia. The wildlife there has never been hunted and people have only been on the island for under 100 years.
Here are some more photos of some of my interactions with Australian wildlife:
Hope you enjoyed the photos, there will be quite a few more wildlife posts in the future.
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