THE kangarumours of wild wallabies living in North Wiltshire have been proved once and for all after two Brinkworth joggers stumbled across a bouncing marsupial last weekend.

Chantelle Thomas and her boyfriend Rob Pridham took themselves out for an early morning run at Somerford Common on Saturday (August 19) but were left dumbfounded when the wandering wallaby appeared right before their eyes on the wet track.

"We were out running at about 7.30am on Saturday morning and I was saying to my partner Rob how I was hoping to see a deer and then we saw this figure in the middle of the road and when we looked closer we saw it was a wallaby," the 26-year-old teacher said.

"Rob didn't have his contacts in, so he thought I was mad. The wallaby didn't seem to be shy though and we got really close and it was only when I started to film that it ran."

Over the years, a number of wallaby sightings have been reported, with one of the earliest dating back to 2000.

The rumours of our newfound neighbours didn't really take hold though until Wanda the Wallaby disappeared from her home in Mildenhall in July 2014.

Her story captivated those living in and around Marlborough and almost created a cult following for the Wiltshire Wallaby Group on Facebook but despite apparently being reunited with her owners a month later, sightings were still being reported.

The wallaby tracks went cold in December though, so this is the first sighting for wallaby investigators this year.

"I didn't know there had been sightings before and only found out when I got home and looked it up," Ms Thomas added.

"The whole thing threw me completely to be honest. I had to double check what a wallaby actually looked like just to make sure I hadn't gone mad!"