Buffalo found in Humpty Doo spa

A buffalo who took an early morning fancy to Darwin’s rural area shocked a couple of residents when he jumped in their spa. Real estate agent Christine Habel, of Humpty Doo, Australia, said she thought it was a joke when her husband woke her up and told her there was a buffalo roaming their property.



‘‘I was still half asleep — and there was a water buffalo grazing happily on the back lawn,’’ she said. ‘‘I managed to pat it until it started head-butting me — playfully I think.’’ Ms Habel, 60, said that she left the ‘‘ wonderful’’ but semi-wild beast to wander while she got ready for work last Friday.

‘‘When I was ready to drive off I walked the entire property to see if he was still around but he was nowhere to be seen, so we locked the gate,’’ she said. Ms Habel said that an ‘‘amazing sight’’ greeted her when she returned home in the evening. ‘‘This buffalo was standing in the family spa, playing with the chlorinator, headbutting it around,’’ she said. ‘‘He was just having a wow of a time.



‘‘We managed to herd him out and he went down the road ... and tried to get back into our place half an hour later. But we’d shut the gate by then.’’ Ms Habel, a resident of 36 years, said she had never seen anything like it. ‘‘If I hadn’t taken photos no one would have believed me,’’ she said. ‘‘This could only happen in the Top End.’’