About Us

Since 1993 Echidna Walkabout has been providing high quality nature experiences throughout Victoria and south east Australia for small groups of international and domestic travellers.

We organise everything for you on our fully guided and catered journeys. Our prices include everything except for your personal effects (which you probably wouldn't want us to deal with anyway!). Please read our detailed tour itineraries and if you have any doubts about what is included please ask us.

Janine Duffy and Roger Smith are the founders and Owner/Operators of Echidna Walkabout, based in Melbourne, Victoria. They both have a strong respect for the environment, the indigenous cultures and interest in environmentally sustainable living.

Our in-house guide training program ensures that your guide is qualified in all aspects of tour leadership, first aid, logistics and organisation with special emphasis on interpretation of nature and Aboriginal Culture. The Echidna Walkabout guide team on Picasa.

Positive Conservation

Echidna Walkabout’s driving principle, from inception, is positive conservation. We believe that people protect what they know, and what they love. So we set out to create a style of tourism that not only minimizes negative effects on the environment, but positively creates a sense of wonder, an understanding, a power to change for the better. Interestingly, in the process, our own sense of wonder grew! We started to see our wildlife and environment through the eyes of a first-time visitor. Our magnificent wild kangaroos, our gentle koalas, our noisy, gorgeous cockatoos – even our huge stinging Bull Ants – are all so special and we are so lucky to have them in Australia! Knowing these wild animals, working with them every day and teaching others how to work with them has given us an even greater appreciation and a passion to preserve our wildlife and natural spaces.

Aboriginal Culture

In addition, we were lucky enough to start working with our local Aboriginal Community – the Wathaurong – who have continued to be mentors, teachers and friends. Much of our understanding of wildlife, the bush and of Respect has come from their teaching, and we have a lot to thank them for. The Gunai/Kurnai People of East Gippsland have also taught us much about their magnificent area. We always aim to work with the indigenous people of any area we travel to. Not only is it the correct protocol, it is usually enormously rewarding. Australians are incredibly lucky that our first people are here and are willing to talk and share with us.

The greatest compliment we receive is when our travellers return to their home and see their own place, their own wildlife, and maybe their indigenous culture with a new enthusiasm.

Our Mission

Our mission as a tour operator is to ensure that wild animals have a future in wild habitats around Australia - to ensure the free-living future of Australian wildlife. Our Mission Statement

Many of our Environmental Practices are hidden behind the scenes of a tour. As eco-tour operators we respect, reduce, re-use and recycle, as a matter of course. But it is in the details that these ethics are shown.