As a nine-year-old South African travelling overseas to the UK for the first time, I was astonished that people would ask me if I had lions in my backyard. Now, nearly 40 years later and living in Australia, I’ll be better equipped to answer a similar question….
I have the great good fortune to live in a small town on the outskirts of a big city. We did a tree change 8 months ago, and the property we bought has some great features, like a few acres of semi-natural bushland behind the house. Some of the trees on these few acres have been there since before white people settled in the area; giant gumtrees whose presence I can actually feel. We have a couple of huge gums in our yard as well, and there are giant trees in the properties around us too. Most of the houses are on the old quarter-acre; I really enjoy the space of the place!
On top of that, we are hugely entertained every day by the lorikeets and galahs, sometimes king parrots and cockatoos, who come to feed on the birdseed we leave for them, following on from the previous owner’s habits. The lorikeets are the smallest of the birds, and without a doubt they’re also the bossiest, seeing off the huge flock of galahs and even the big parrots and cockatoos; little buggers 
The best thing though, was that yesterday we were quite entranced to see koalas in the trees on our boundary; it seems there’s quite a little colony of them living in the few acres behind our house. So I might not be able to buy my favourite chai tea at the local supermarket, but in nearly 30 years of living in Brisbane I never saw koalas in my yard either.
So now when I travel overseas and people ask if I have koalas in my yard, I can say – yep. And have the photos to prove it
Oh, and here is one of the gum trees in the yard, took 3 photos to get it all in it’s so tall – must be 18 meters, maybe 20…
[...] me, I’m off to drink my tea under my big gum tree, wonder if the koalas are here [...]