Our koala hunt

Ted. One month into our visit to Australia we had not yet seen a koala. We had seen lots of beautiful birds, some kangaroos, a couple of wombats and possibly a wallaby (though it may have just been a young kangaroo). Frankly, we were getting a little tired of everyone telling us they were all around us. “They’re probably in your garden.” “We have two in our yard right now.” “There in the tops of most trees - just take your time and look.” All of these tips simply added to our frustration. 

So, yesterday morning, we rose early and took the train to nearby Belair National Park, determined to spot a koala or die trying (well, that’s an exaggeration). Armed with our binoculars, iPhones and plenty of water we headed out into the bush…what the locals call the woods. Everyone told us to look for a lump in a fork of a gum tree (eucalyptus). Do you have any idea how many gum trees there are in the bush? There are HUNDREDS! And each tree has lots of forks. We probably looked at thousands of forks. There are also knots and bumps in the trees so we inspected all of those. 

The bush

Ultimately, we did spot a suspicious lump. 

Suspicious lump in the fork on the right

Since it was way up there, I resorted to a trick I learned in Alaska and held my iPhone up to one lens of my binoculars. Low and behold, the lump had a face! 

Larry

Ultimately, we saw three of the furry little guys. As you can tell, they weren’t working very hard to elude us. 

Moe

Curly

It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the hike, spotting a couple of kangaroos and some more types of birds we had not seen before. After taking the train back to the village, we settled into a pub to toast ourselves for a successful hunt. 

We were told along the trail it is also possible to spot echidnas in the park. Maybe we’ll try our luck at more big game on another day.