My Koala Kapture

Hi, my name is Kirra and if you haven’t read any of my blog posts already, I am 10 years old and my family is traveling Australia for a year.  I am super excited to share this post with you…I hope you enjoy reading!  

This past week, my family and I went on an 8-day adventure along the Great Ocean Road. One of our overnight stops was at ‘Cloud Farm’ in Apollo Bay, Victoria – an Airbnb my Nana found for us to stay for three nights, actually.  The scenery was beautiful – we had 8 sheep, 20 koalas (we called them the Fuzzypants family), and 12+ king parrots just out our front door!  We each had named a parrot.  Buddy is what I named my parrot.  He had a red-head, green body, and neon green blobs all over.  He was very plump too.  Eliana named her parrot Cherry, and he had a neon redhead, a dark green body, and was also sort of plump!  Quinn’s named his parrot Blue Raspberry.  She had a green head, a red body, and a little blob of blue on her tail. The property was beautiful.  But what happened on the last day at ‘Cloud Farm’ was INCREDIBLE!!

I was sitting on the couch watching TV, when Eliana said, “Kirra, there’s a koala outside on the tree!”  I immediately stood up and grabbed my iPod to go take some pictures.  The morning before, my Dad had found 17 koalas in the trees around the house, so taking pictures of them became one of our daily activities.  When I got out there, the koala was sitting on the lowest branch of the tree.  I immediately started videotaping.  He started climbing down the trunk of the tree.  Excitement flowed through me! “Hi, buddy!” I whispered. And because of the bark on the tree, the koala slipped and fell on a big smooth rock underneath.  I gasped.  I was so worried that he was hurt, but he was OK because he climbed through the wires on the fence and walked right up towards me (about 2 feet away).  I yelled for my Nana and Mom to come see.  I stopped the video and the koala looked at me and made a pig-like noise (which is so funny to hear), and then kept walking.  At that moment, I didn’t know if he was angry or scared, so I was a little freaked out.  I had never been so close to such a unique and wild animal before – and I just captured it all on my iPod!

My Dad, Mom, and Nana filmed him climbing through the gate that made sure the sheep wouldn’t get out – clearly not used to keep koalas in.  He walked on the gravel and went down in the bushes.  Eventually, he came back out and walked to the nearest tree. (Which happened to be a small pine tree).  He climbed up and started eating the pine needles.  A strange sight to see for an animal that gets all of its nutrition from the gum leaves!  We wondered if this was his dessert.  He sat there for a while and when we started taking photos, he leaned his head back as if posing for the pictures!  My Papa waited with the koala to make sure he didn’t get hit by a car – it was late in the evening and it would have been impossible for a car passing by to see the little guy had he decided to cross the road.  Just then, he motioned us over for something.  We walked over to him, and sitting just above my Papa was a little baby koala!  We took so many photos!  Then, we walked back to the house with awe and excitement.  It was an amazing experience to get just 2 feet away from a wild koala!  I wonder if any other Australian ten-year-olds have gotten that close to a koala in the wild before?!

Be sure to scroll down and watch our video of this incredible experience!!!!!