Running With Kangaroos
Some wild run-ins with Australia’s fastest marsupial
There they are, kangaroo tracks in the sand, changing from soft imprints to deep furrows, or disappearing entirely as the owner of these prints hopped from wet sand to dry, from rock to seaweed strewn beach and back again. In a little while, the tide will reclaim them.
I measure my own running strides against these prints. No comparison. The kangaroo might have been going carefully on this rocky, mangrovy beach, but there’s no sign that it slowed at all. It looks as though it flew down this stretch of sand with the same effortless grace that they use to travel anywhere. Calling a kangaroo’s strides hopping seems strange if you compare a human’s clumsy hop to a kangaroo’s flying gait.
I wonder what makes a kangaroo hop down the beach alone. Most days I see them as I pass by a paddock bordered by bushland — great mobs of kangaroos, males and females and joeys. All alert as the panting, puffing human lumbers past, then returning to go about their days.
Hanging out in a paddock in the morning is typical kangaroo behaviour. Like the majority of Australians, I live in one of the populous eastern states, near the coast, so the kangaroos I typically see are eastern grey kangaroos. They live in open-membership groups (mobs) with smaller groups often joining to form larger groups to graze and watch for predators together.
They like to spend the hottest parts of the day sheltered under the trees or in thick scrub before searching out new tender grass shoots to graze on at dusk, through the night, and into the early morning. This makes farmland bordered by remnant bushland an ideal kangaroo habitat, and somewhere that you will often see large mobs of kangaroos gathered together.
Many mornings when I go running, I startle the kangaroos and they startle me in equal measure. One day, as I’m running down a track between farmland and a reserve, I come across a kangaroo just as it’s leaping from one paddock to the next. The fences here are made for cattle, and they’re no obstacle for creatures whose bodies are essentially giant springs.
The roo decides to put some distance between us and takes off in bounds towards the rest of its mob. But because this roo is heading off on the diagonal, there’s the strange, momentary illusion that I’m keeping pace with it. The beat of our footfalls, I realise, is the same. I’m running with a kangaroo.
Of course, the illusion doesn’t last long. Our cadence might match, but the roo’s bounds are eating up the ground, and I soon see it come to rest at the other side of the paddock — twitching an ear back at me and deciding I’m far too slow to be considered a threat — bending to the close-cropped grass and beginning its shuffling graze.
Kangaroos are the fastest marsupial, with the highest recorded speed of a female eastern grey kangaroo at 64 kilometres per hour (40 miles per hour). Usain Bolt can’t match that, so there’s no way I’m keeping up.
With large feet (their scientific name, macropus means ‘big foot’), powerful tendons in their legs, muscular backs, and that incredible tail, an eastern grey kangaroo can easily cover 9 meters (29.5 feet) of ground in a single hop. As they move along, storing energy in those giant springy tendons, kangaroos are able to speed up and use less energy the faster they move.
Another morning, I’m running down the track beside a swampy bit of creek. I don’t usually encounter kangaroos here, and so I’m caught off guard when I round a bend and come almost face to face with what looks like two very muscly males.
I’ve seen the young males fighting recently, and I don’t particularly want to be in their way if they’re spoiling for a fight. Unprovoked kangaroo attacks are so rare that they usually make the news as a bit of an oddity, but they do happen. These are smaller males, but I’ve seen others that are easily my height and weight. Ducking my head, and trying to keep my pace consistent and my posture non-threatening, I shuffle on down the path.
The maximum recorded weight of a male eastern grey kangaroo is 91 kilograms (200 pounds) and that animal would have stood at a height of around 1.7 meters (5.5 feet), but most reach a maximum of around 66 kilograms (145 pounds). Female eastern grey kangaroos are much smaller, weighing up to 37 kilograms (81 pounds).
It looks like the young kangaroos I see most mornings are just playfighting. They’re testing themselves and each other, but not taking anything too seriously. One will suddenly dash up to another, then they’ll both rear back and start boxing and scrabbling. It’s all over in a second, and more often than not they go back to grazing side by side.
Eastern grey kangaroo males use fighting or boxing to establish their place in the mob’s hierarchy. While it’s common for young kangaroos to fight, they’re mostly just honing their skills. As they get older, the fights will become more serious as each one tries to become the dominant male within the group. Once hierarchies have been established, older males will try to avoid fights through displays of strength and dominance.
One morning I come across the kangaroos down by the shore. I’ve run to the point of a small peninsula, and the track is hugging the clifftop, offering dazzling views of the early morning light on the waters of the bay below.
I head to the lookout to catch my breath and a better view of the still orange-tinged sun as it climbs behind the trees of the point. There’s no beach below the lookout, only rocks jutting out into the bay, and making their way slowly across those rocks are two kangaroos. I wonder what they’re doing. With their heads down, they look like they’re grazing. Do they supplement their diet with seaweed? Have they come here to lick salt off the rocks?
The direction of their movement makes it seem as though they’ve just emerged from the water. Kangaroos can swim when they need to, although it’s much more likely that they have made their way around the corner from the beach.
The bulk of an eastern grey kangaroo’s diet consists of grass, although they will graze on low shrubs and fungi. I’m still not sure what the roos were looking for on that beach.
Heading out on a long weekend run in a reserve, I’m hoping to see some wildlife. I’m always greeted by the calls of rosellas and kookaburras, magpies and wattlebirds as I run through this reserve. And I know that this place is home to echidnas, wombats, and others. Shy creatures that will happily keep to themselves, hidden in the scrub or their burrows as I crash on past them.
As I make my way further into the reserve, dodging puddles and downed trees from recent storms, I get the feeling that this place hasn’t seen much foot traffic lately. Lockdowns in metropolitan areas and wild storms across this rural part of the state have kept people out of many of the parks and bushland areas that usually make popular weekend retreats.
It’s unusually quiet. Everything is soggy from the recent rain, and there’s a gentle, white noise background of water dripping from top-storey eucalypts to mid-storey banksias, and on down to the grasses and bracken of the undergrowth. Everything seems muted — my squishy footsteps, the woolly grey sky threatening more rain. It’s not the highly charged quiet before a storm. It’s more the gentle quiet of contentment.
I’ve just scrambled over another fallen tree, and I’m breaking into a jog again when a tree stump ahead of me grows legs and bounds away. Of course, it wasn’t a tree stump, but an eastern grey perfectly camouflaged in its bush surroundings. I’ve come across kangaroos here before, but I more often see their trails than the animals who make them.
I’m rounding a bend when another kangaroo bounds off the path ahead of me. It crashes through the bush, and just as I’m wondering how a prey animal could have possibly evolved and survived when it makes this much noise, it’s gone. Not a sight, not a sound. It has simply melted into the scrub.
When I find a path that’s completely blocked by a massive fallen gum tree, I’m grateful that I didn’t take the trail that would have left me stranded on the other side of it, so close to the trailhead, and yet with no choice but to retrace my steps. The branches of this giant (or giants, I see, as I survey the tangled mess) are festooned with yellow warning tape. That means every path into the reserve is at least partially (and in this case completely) blocked by fallen trees, branches, or water. No wonder there aren’t more people about.
I’m not quite ready to head home yet, but those lowering rain clouds and my earlier experience with some mudslide paths are making me reluctant to head anywhere too adventurous either. While I’m still wondering which direction to take, the sun breaks out — glinting off wet eucalypts and turning a trail of mud puddles into a glittering silver path. I start to feel a little more adventurous, and I’m just heading back along a track that I think will take me to a good alternative route when I see a break in the trees and a massive mob of kangaroos in the farmland beyond.
I can’t believe I didn’t even notice them before getting so close. But I’ve been watching my feet as the mud puddles in the track gradually form up to create a new river. We’ve all stopped in our tracks to stare. I’ve never seen so many kangaroos here — couldn’t imagine that this little corner of bush and the surrounding farms could support such a large group — and from their startled stares, I think they’re pretty shocked to see me crashing into view as well.
The kangaroos I normally see close to home always watch me as I go past, but in a lazy way. As long as I’m not making a wild run at them, they’re content, but this mob is on high alert. Every set of eyes is on me, from the largest male to the smallest joey in the pouch.
I want to step calmly away, but I’m transfixed. Eventually, I do turn my feet for home, choosing a path that’s surprisingly free of obstacles, and gathering momentum on a relatively dry trail that’s taking me steadily downhill.
I think I’ve left the last of the kangaroos behind me, but I continue to encounter them as I make my way down the hill and out of the reserve. One joey, about half the height of its mum, makes a comical attempt to flee. When they see me, mum takes off and joey follows her into the bush… but it’s not a graceful escape. While she effortlessly chooses the path of least resistance, travelling almost soundlessly between the trees, the poor joey zigzags at every obstacle, barely clearing clumps of swordgrass and rotting logs, as it scrambles its way helter-skelter after her. She’s waiting of course, and they eventually bound away into the scrub together.
I come across other roos who don’t seem so nervous. They’re not going to share the path with me, but they don’t seem to be in any hurry as they bound off to their own thin trails in the bush to either side. For a little way, their paths parallel mine, and with their unhurried hops, and my downhill momentum, there’s once again the illusion that we’re keeping pace, and there I am, running with kangaroos.
