By Mark Robertson
MY FIRST echidna encounter for the season was in October – the Saturday of the Moto GP. I was enjoying a great coffee at the Hicksborough store, watching the motorbikes heading towards Phillip Island, when a lady stopped her car suddenly. An echidna had decided to cross the Bass Highway. Soon the traffic had halted, waiting for it to decide whether to wander across the busy road or attempt to burrow into the warm bitumen. A motorcyclist picked it up (leather gloves have more than one use) and deposited it on the "nature strip", and the traffic once more flowed.