The Tale of the Fat Koala

This week has been one of close encounters with Australia’s unique brand of wildlife. That, and my first visit to our shiny new IKEA, but that’s still a bit too painful to talk about.

For a city that most people have heard of, Adelaide is very small. It is wedged in-between the sea and the hills, so it is difficult to see it getting much bigger. While the sea is a shark filled shimmering vision of deep blue, the hills are a rolling green carpet of eucalyptus trees with mountain bike tracks cutting through the dense forest, making superb riding and offering an eye to eye experience of some very strange animals.

It’s no big news that this country sits on a far out branch of the evolutionary tree, apparently Australia broke away from the larger land mass and went it’s own sweet way relatively early in the earth’s history.

The net result of this is that Aussie critters a little bit lower down in the big scheme of things, let’s say spiders, snakes and particularly crocs, are as hard as coffin nails, while those fluffy things alleged to be in the tall branches of Mother Nature’s big tree are mostly big pansies.

From what I can see, these animals have had the luxury of evolving without a major carnivorous threat. So most tasty mammals just got complacent. Take the koala, it sleeps where it fancies, doesn’t bother hiding and nothing eats it.

The same goes for possums. There cannot be a fluffier, cuter and fatter animal anywhere. Where else would you get such a tubby, juicy, slow moving meal on legs which fears nothing?

I nearly rode into one last week as it took a breather on the pavement. Skidding to a halt and cursing loudly, (well, I was on the way home from the pub), it gave me a dismissive stare, didn’t move a muscle and made me cycle round it.

Kangaroos are slightly different; they have no predators apart from people like me who think they taste great. I reckon this makes them half of the world’s only legally edible national emblem. Apart from the leek.

Anyway, back to koalas. It seems that the biggest danger they face is from themselves and I saw something last week which I am sure I will never see again, in front of my eyes, deep in the forest, a koala fell out of a tree. And it wasn’t a small tree, in fact it was a bloody big gum tree and it fell all the way from the top.

Three of us were riding through the forest and had stopped for a break. I can only imagine that the koala had spied a juicy looking clump of leaves at the end of a branch which was never designed for a bottom that big. Hence the crack which we heard and the sight of the koala hanging onto plummeting foliage. And then a hefty thump. And then nothing…..

The second of my notable Aussie wildlife encounters of the week involved the other edible half of the Australian flag, the emu. A uniquely menacing bird.

There is a long list of things which scare me, and right at the top is the emu. Unlike Mandy, who, as you will see has a special bond with them. The photo was taken from quite a distance on full zoom. As for me, I hate them!

The unsettling thing about an emu is that they always look as if they are on the verge of starting a fight. That, along with their sinister unblinking gaze, razor sharp claws and an over exposure to Rod Hull as a child has long ago chased out any warm feelings I might have for them.

Back to the point, I was riding along a narrow track and rounded a corner to find not one but seven of the evil looking so & sos guarding the middle of the track, (all much larger than Mandy’s friend), their murderous eyes fixed on me as I slid to a frozen halt.

I was leading the way and my sudden braking caused some cursing from the blokes who crashed to a halt behind me.

They reliably informed me that the poor birds were more frightened than me….without bothering to check quite how scared I was. And if that was a mob of frightened emus, please never show me a punchy one!

But it didn’t end here, we came across the same mob (bit of jargon for you there – a mob of emus) another half a dozen times, always appearing inconveniently in my path as if the birds and I were two pieces in some giant game of chess and they were perpetually one step ahead of me.

It was with some relief when I made it to an emu free pub shortly afterwards.

I am going on a bit, so enough for this episode. We are taking a long weekend on Kangaroo Island from Friday, a place which is supposed to be unique even by Aussie standards, there is a link on the right of the page. Hopefully we’ll be able to report on a good time next week. I may also be able to talk about IKEA by then.

As for the koala…after a minute of silence, a bewildered and embarrassed head emerged from the forest floor. Shortly afterwards the tubby little chap tottered to it’s feet, wobbled a bit and climbed back up the tree to a round of applause. Having a fat bottom has it’s advantages.

W&M