After discussing my various lizard sightings with Hayley in the office, she told me of a picnic site she had been to where there were loads of Goannas to be seen. Apparently they seemed quite used to humans and when she went there, there were several of them just wandering about the site amongst all the picnicers. Now it has taken me a while to find out exactly what a goanna is. You hear the word a fair bit in Australia and I was always (perhaps stupidly because being a reptile enthusiast I should really know) under the impression it was an Aussie word for Iguana. Anyway, after asking a few Aussies and getting nothing more than “it’s a big lizard” I googled it to discover a goanna is in fact a monitor. “Cool as” I thought. I definitely want to get me a look at one of those little beauties. I didn’t know what sort of monitors they would be but I was damn sure going to find out.
So, last Sunday (30th March) was a pretty fine hot sunny day and Mat and I had gone for little drive up to Cottage Point to see the scenery in the daylight (last time we went by the light of a full moon but I haven’t got around to writing a post on that yet). After a drink and ice cream at the yachting club we decided to hunt down the picnic sight that Hayley had said was nearby. I had a look on the map and saw a picnic site symbol a few Ks down the Coal & Candle Creek at Illawong Bay so this is where we headed.
No sooner than we had spotted the picnic site and turned in Mat spotted something crossing the path ahead. I leapt out as Mat parked up and sure enough, we had us our first goanna sighting:
and here’s a closeup 
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