Listen to the unique laugh of the kookaburra, a large kingfisher, enjoy the sight of the many different parrots, feed the brilliantly plumed rainbow lorikeets in Queensland, or watch as hundreds of small fairy penguins march up the beach to their burrows every night at dusk on Phillip Island.
Australia has many vegetation regions. Fill your lungs with the heavy scented air of the rainforests, or the distinctive smell of the eucalypt, commonly called gum tree. Wildflowers turn open country into a blaze of colour in spring and some of the best known are the waratah, Sturt's desert pea, kangaroo paw and the Christmas bush. .