Kute Koala

My friend Alan - a Scot who's been working in Australia for the last couple of years - and his family have rented a house on the Great Ocean Road for the weekend. Another local friend, Pete, drove me down to visit them.

Weather today - Australian autumn - was a like a really nice British summer day. On the way we stopped at Bell's Beach to admire the views and watch the surfers, and at Lorne, before arriving at Kennett River.

The area is famous for its koala colony - there were even two lazing in a tree in the garden next door! We set off on an uphill track to find more, but despite driving quite far inland the little so-and-sos were playing hard to get and we only spotted one. On the way down, though, we saw several. One was sleeping (very cutely) against the trunk of a trees. Others, with no consideration for the photographer, stayed part-hidden among the most leafy eucalyptus branches. This one, though, was pretty active, and obligingly posed as he moved from branch to branch. (He was actually persuaded to move by Pete, who has quite a repertoire of koala-baiting techniques - kudos to the Australian education system!)

We also saw a kookaburra, which looked very cute sitting on the branch until it suddenly swooped down and viciously killed a little gecko!

A really nice day out, in great company :)