"It sniffed at my hiking boot and tickled my bum with its snout"

An echidna in Mulligans Flat

- BY OLIVIA CONGDON

WHEN YOU'RE HIKING IN THE Australian bush, your eyes home in on every distant blob. Everything looks like an echidna. Or at least that's what you hope. Then you blink yourself back to reality, because it turns out to be a grassy tussock, a cowpat or a stump.

I'm an Aussie born and bred, but I've only seen a few of these spiny monotremes in my three-decade lifetime – and those sightings were fleeting. Occasionally they turned up unexpectedly on the farm where I grew up, sometimes I've had to slow down for them on the highway. Echidnas are iconic but they're notoriously elusive.

Even when you do come across one, an echidna usually offers a prickly reception. Tucking its legs and snout beneath its body, it enters what can only be described as 'spiky ball mode' in an effort to deter potential threats.

All things considered, I never imagined I'd have a nonchalant echidna almost land in my lap – but that is exactly what happened one spring day in 2020.