Pam Dawes, NPA Environmental Book Club
This book begins by exploring through the eyes of a 15-year-old schoolboy, Peter Nicholson, the burrows of wombats; wriggling on his tummy and exploring a world not unlike that of Alice’s Wonderland. His notes and tunnel maps written in 1960, are still being referred to today, as his feat has not been repeated. Imagine coming face to face with a wombat within a tunnel only just big enough to wriggle through. Peter excavated the tunnels just enough in a few places, to make a turnaround, so he could come out of the burrow face first.
Wombats belong to the order Diprotodontia, marsupials that have 2 front incisors, which include kangaroos, possums and koalas (its closest relative).
Many facts are revealed such as: that wombats can run 40 kph and maintain that speed for 90 secs (faster than any human-even Usain Bolt). It can swim and its armour-plated back could squash a human to death against the roof of its burrow.
“It is able to flatten itself like dough under a rolling pin and slip through cracks less than 10 cm wide”.
It has rootless teeth and is perfectly adapted to fend for itself, as a vegetarian eating roots and grasses.
As the book progresses, we are led through millennia, using fossils found at Riversleigh: facts are revealed about the evolution of wombats, the separation of Australia from the Americas and Antarctica and the desertification of Australia. There are stories of the first settlers’ experience of wombats, such as that of George Bass, who calmly picked up a wombat wrapped it across his shoulders and it was happy to be carried for some hours, as he wished to take it back to England. Upon placing it on the ground and tying its feet, the wombat became furious and uncontrollable and from that time till it was finally released, in a home in England, it hardly ate. Peter talked about a wombat following him and putting his paws on his legs – plainly curious as to what Peter was and wanting to make his acquaintance.
This was my first book as a member of the Environmental Book Club and I am excited to read the next book.
Pam Dawes is Convenor of the new Northern Beaches sub-branch.