We picked folk up for a custom tour this morning (4.00am!) to take them seeking wild koalas and wallabies on their way from Brisbane to the Gold Coast.

It was raining at our first stop, but we walked for about half an hour through the bushland – no koalas and one possible fleeting glimpse of a wallaby.

Okay, off to the next possibility, and within two minutes we were looking up at a female koala in a gum tree, in a most classic koala pose, calmly looking down at us, and staying that way for multiple photos.

Next stop – almost immediately a female red-necked wallaby with a fairly large joey grazing the grass beside her. Joey looked at us and decided he’d be safer back in poor Mum’s pouch. Just around the corner was a large male, who seemed quite unperturbed by our presence, and soon a small joey popped his head out of another female’s pouch – another great photo opportunity.

Our next bushwalk produced no koalas or wallabies (the latter possibly because on our arrival a couple were illegally exercising their unleashed, barking dogs.

I had just pointed out a termite nest in a tree that looked as though a kookaburra had excavated for its own nest, when a kookaburra started laughing.

Koalas, wallabies and kookaburras laughing – not a bad introduction to Australia within two hours of leaving the international airport.