The Car Eater
The platypus. Every corner of this animal’s natural history seems to hold a plot twist, from its prominent TV role as a turquoise pet-turned-spy named Perry to the coalition of different animal parts that make up its body (Webbed feet like a frog, fur like an otter, a steam-rolled version of a duck’s bill). But surely the most fascinating part of this animal’s story is its venom, packed into a spur on the male’s hind leg, rather like a human having a dagger in their sock.
If I was to find myself stabbed by a platypus spur this afternoon I would feel a pain 10 times worse than plunging my foot into a cauldron of lego. But if a platypus male was stung while in a scrap he would feel an irritable sting like you or I might get from a bee.
Why does the platypus have a sting packed with this much venom when its rival will barely feel it? That’s likely a question for the future scientists who are currently sitting high chairs dining on Cow&Gate: no one knows. Scientists are, however, uncovering more insights into the qualities of its venom. Following the classic platypus tradition of using the best of everything, it appears to take various toxin genes from multiple animal groups: Snakes, spiders, fish, lizards, even anemones, making its venom a kaleidoscope of animal species. This venom is looking more and more likely to be useful for humans. It contains a hormone called GLP-1 which produces insulin in the pancreas. Humans also have this hormone but the platypus holds onto it far longer. By studying this within its venom, it is hoped that the information gleaned can eventually be used in human treatment.
The platypus is so intriguing because it seems to defy logic. Its body plan seems accidental, it lays eggs (a very hipster trait for a mammal - the only other mammal to lay eggs is the echidna), and its venom is pointlessly toxic. Taking my three young cousins to see them also defied logic. Platypus-spotting really isn’t particularly kid-friendly - the operation required speed and stealth, neither of which are in my four year-old cousin’s vocabulary. But despite all that, I could see the value of tricking my extended family into booking a weekend in Canberra so that we could centre the weekend around a trip to Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, a platypus hotspot.
And so we found ourselves the day before Platypus Day lost in the depths of Canberra’s roundabout addiction. Within 5 kilometres of the city, our sat-nav suddenly refused to drive in straight lines. Instead, it directed us in bizarre circular movements around the city’s disturbingly over-planned layout. One moment we were driving past Parliament House, the next we were motoring through a housing estate. This anarchy continued until we eventually found our accommodation for the night and stumbled in through the door.
That evening we all enjoyed the usual customs of going away for the night: checking to see if there was tea in the tea caddy, opening all the cupboards and bouncing up and down on the beds, that sort of thing. Youngest cousin’s evening took a turn for the worst however, when a responsible adult reminded him that bedtime would be in half an hour. He quickly abandoned his large collection of cars and hid underneath a glass coffee table. Having failed to realise that glass table tops are not conducive to on the run from bedtime, he was very conspicuous but as I’d been blessed with 14 more years to grow in wisdom than Youngest, I decided to help him out by providing sanctuary in my wardrobe.
After expressing his appreciation for my generous offer, he nestled himself amongst a collection of blankets on the wardrobe floor and looked quite content. But of course Youngest is 4 and generally attacks life as though he’s drunk a supermarket’s yearly stock of espressos. Boredom soon began to take hold. The solution was clearly to get his Celebrations tin of cars, the contents of which decorated the sitting room floor in a sea of pixar-eyes and cheaply painted car roofs. Collecting these was out of the question as it would alert everyone to his new hideout so he decided to delegate this task to me.
I declined this request, feeling that 15 minutes of constructing car crashes would not help his brain settle for sleep. A sleep-deprived Youngest meant a platypus-less day in my book. I attempted to lecture him instead on the intricacies of platypus venom, which was not well received.
“Why don’t we read the picture book I brought you, the one with pictures of Dublin?”
“ No no, I only like books about Sydney, please get me my cars”
“We’re not playing cars now, it's a good book, I think you’ll like it”
“I don’t want the book, I want my cars… please.. Just five cars… three cars?… Please!!... Just try…. Try your best…. TRY YOUR BEST!!”
I personally didn’t even feel that “try your best” was a relevant campaign slogan for his cause, but he continued to chant it at a higher and higher volume until the glass table in the sitting room shattered into a million pieces and cracks began to form on the ceiling. His wails continued until bedtime where he was extracted from the wardrobe and dragged to bed in what became a remake of an “I-live-in-some-desperate-institution” horror movie.
Platypus are most active at dawn, which is a trait shared by every child under the age of twelve. Initially I thought this would play to my advantage in reaching Tidbinbilla National Park before the platypus swam off to bed, but I failed to factor in an important point: My cousin's ability to wake at dawn far exceeded their ability to leave the house at dawn.
I discovered this early the next morning as I groggily buttered toast for two iPad addicts while a responsible adult was entered negotiations with Youngest over whether chocolate counted as breakfast. Our early morning start melted into a puddle of jumperless, shoeless cousins floating in technology, wrestling matches and croissants.
Order was eventually restored by tempting them to the car with more pain au chocolat and we finally set off into a rather misty grey morning. We swapped the perplexing streets of Canberra for the highway. The darkness began to brighten and Kangaroos bounded through the fog in front of us.
As soon as we had parked at Tidbinbilla Nature reserve, Middle and Oldest ran off to check out the sticks and branches on offer while Youngest announced his intention to bring his Celebrations tin of cars. Boxes of clanking metal don’t lend themselves to wildlife watching and so he was allowed only one car.
A thoughtful pause followed, “Why, will the Platypus eat my cars?”
I explained the unlikelihood of the platypus jumping out of the bushes and kidnapping a child’s toy. He looked longingly at his favourite car but decided to go with one he was willing to sacrifice just in case. After much deliberation and muttering to himself, a blue car was selected and he toddled off to select his walking stick. Any progress across the car park was soon halted when Youngest realised that the massive tree trunks his sibling’s carried were somewhat larger than his stick.
I took this opportunity to leave Youngest's bourgeois cries for stick-length equality with a responsible adult and hurried towards the viewing platform, followed at every turn by the thumping of my cousin's sticks-on-boardwalk. After much pleading and persuasion, the noise was reduced to the occasional (sometimes accidental) whack of stick against metal railing.
Once at the right spot, we joined another group of visitors and took in our surroundings. A single grebe paddled by the reeds at the edge of the creek. Over the distant wails of my still-crying cousin we could hear the kookaburra’s laugh echoing from the forested slopes of the Tidbinbilla mountains. It was the sort of spot which you knew, if you waited long enough, a platypus would eventually emerge.
I was just starting to feel hopeful when the whispering started.
“Have you seen him yet?”
“No, have you?”
“No”
“How long is he going to be?”
“Maybe if we go to the other side of the dam?”
“Maybe if I bang my stick against the railing he’ll be curious?”
The other group were clearly having similar thoughts and could be heard stumbling the undergrowth around the dam as quiet as elephants on a stag night.
More tourists were soon stomping and chatting their way around the reserve and I knew then, I was beat. After one last longing look at the car eater’s home, I sighed and followed the sounds of stomping sticks back to the car.
Since this trip in 2019, Australia has become notorious for its harrowing bushfire season, its ups and downs in fighting a pandemic and species extinctions. And then there’s the conservation success stories that haven’t made the papers, the indigenous knowledge of fire management that have been ignored, the tales of people from different backgrounds working together to find a way forward through these challenges.
These are all things I thought this blog series would be about, for Australia, and the rest of the world, faces big questions about the future. But as I began to write, my cousin's antics and adventures began to feature more and more until they had taken centre stage while the struggles between man and nature became a side character lurking in the undergrowth. Personally I think that's a very happy accident. Nature is under so much pressure that it's hard to separate its beauty from its peril. But even as our ecosystems tremble and quake, our seas empty and our skies grow quiet there are still wonders to be found, a lyrebird to listen to, a platypus to elude you. It is these positive experiences of the wonder of nature that are going to encourage us to transform our planet for the better with far more success than alarming statistics ever could.
All this to say that my cousin's footprints across these stories have helped to turn this blog into a celebration of a country I have always loved, rather than its epitaph. And I’m very grateful for that. They’ve helped me to take ordinary day to day realities and colour them into tales of Supermarket rally driving and wrestling at ferry terminals. I certainly hope to come back to these big issues in future blog posts, but the truth is that my trip to Australia was a homage to a land that helped me to find my way, that lives at a different pace, that sits upon ancient time scales and that I still, after all this time, barely know.
Sure, it’s miles away and the Tayto prices are astronomical but I promise you its so, so worth a visit.
