Numbat

 A few weeks ago, we drove two hours to the Dryandra Woodland, hoping to see a numbat. Numbats are squirrel-sized, bushy-tailed, striped critters that eat termites. They're pretty adorable, but also rare, endangered, and shy.

We cruised slowly along a dirt road through the woodland, looking out the window. Within the first half hour, I saw one out the window. I shouted at Jacob to stop the car, and described where it was -- a few meters off the road, over my left shoulder, hunched under a bush. He had time to get a clear look at it before it disappeared.

We thought it maybe went into a hollow log. We stood and stared at the log in question for nearly an hour, but it never did come back out. Once, some people saw us staring and stopped to come look at whatever we were looking at, making a ton of noise in the process. Maybe that's what scared it off, or maybe it just fell asleep for a bit. Maybe it wasn't in the log at all. In any case, we didn't see it again. Still, we both agreed that ten seconds we stared at a numbat -- and the numbat stared back at us -- was definitely work the 4-hour roundtrip drive.