Visit from a Koala

James came in this morning to tell me there was a koala by the spa in the patio, so I jumped out of bed pretty quickly.
By the time I grabbed the camera it had climbed the tree just outside the study, then moved onto the large rainwater tank. We've had a few near the house in the 4 years we've been here, but none had hung around long enough for photos before today.

It spent most of the day like this:

(and no, it's not a eucalypt!)

Late this afternoon it was back in the patio again, but the presence of the dogs meant it climbed back up the tree fairly quickly.

It sat there happily for ages watching us less than a metre away, and happily let James pat it gently. Unfortunately the sun was starting to go down, so all the photos were either into the light, or a bit dark without flash.

The next photo is terrible, but it was taken through my study window, from where I sit at my sewing machine; it's sitting behind the branches:

This picture shows just how close it was all day; that's my machine in the foreground, and the tree in the centre was where it spent most of the day sleeping:

For those of you wondering, we're in the foothills of Adelaide; still in suburbia (20 minute drive from the city centre), but the blocks are large, with lots of big trees. There's a big National Park nearby, and quite a bit of native scrubland.