This one is going to be a story behind this photo of me and a wild wombat. Brace yourselves, for it is an epic and lengthy tale.

Since the main reason I decided to go to Australia was to meet a wombat because wombats poop squares, I of course wanted to meet a wild one, which did not prove to be an easy task. All throughout my journeys from Canberra to Cairns and back south to Melbourne I was on the lookout for potential places to spot a wombat and I even went to the Sydney zoo to see the wombats there, just in case I would not find a wild one.

My cousin, who was on a working holiday visa near Melbourne at the time, had seen and taken selfies with some wild wombats in Wilsons promontory, so I knew I could go there as a last resort when I reached Melbourne.

I did not in fact see any wombats until I reached Melbourne, where I was promptly informed by my first host that Wilsons promontory was about a 3 hour drive away from Melbourne, with almost no existing public transport. That put a bit of a damper on my spirit, but I was still determined to go and meet the wombats. Two couchsurfing hosts later, I stayed with a great guy named Brandon, who was used to driving a lot in his red fancy ute car and I somehow managed to convince him to take me to the Prom.

To his credit, he did not seem particularly bothered by the 3 hour drive, even though I felt like I was completely imposing on him, but I did really want to see the wombats. We finally got to Wilsons promontory and the views were magnificent! We stopped at several places including Mt. Oberon, which we planned to climb up to the summit, but gave up halfway. Officially it was because the clouds started to roll in and it looked like it was going to rain, but I think we were both just a bit too lazy. Also, did you know raisins are called sultanas in Australia and come in a box?

So, thus far we’d seen most of Wilsons promontory, but no wombats. Not even a wallaby in sight, and the clouds were getting progressively more threatening. We decided to head home and I admit to feeling fairly disappointed, as it was my absolute last chance to see a wombat out in nature. It started to rain a bit and we were on the way out, when what did I see, if not a wombat by the roadside. To this day, I am not entirely sure how I spotted him, but I guess it was fate. I was out of the car before it fully stopped and from then on it was wombat land! <3

We found several wombats, wallabies and even emus, as well as an actual wombat hole with 2 wombats in it. You can see the video down below, where the second wombat is desperately trying to fit into the hole after the first one took up all the space. It was an amazing experience and the wombats were as incredibly cute and weird as I imagined, so the 6 hour drive was totally worth it (I did pay for gas, of course). Brandon was incredibly patient throughout all my hyped “OMG wombats” moments – I was particularly excited about the square poop, which I’ll admit was probably a bit weird.