Worth getting locked up for

My Great Ocean Road tour guide was awesome--he knew exactly where wild koalas hung out.

We stopped at Kennett River Tourist Park, which harbours lots of koalas because of the trees. You see, koalas are fussy little creatures that prefer only about 10 types of eucalyptus leaves, though there's hundreds of types in the country.

Our tour guide did mention a couple of set backs, though. First, not to get too excited because koalas sleep for about 20 hours a day, so the chances of seeing them active were slight. And second, touching a koala was illegal in the state of Victoria.

What the hell? They practically let you take one home in Queensland.

But this was hardly disappointing. Our tour guide led us down a path so we could feed a bunch of overly-friendly birds. But I wasn't there for birds. I wanted to see a koala. So I broke away from the group, and it wasn't long before I came across the cuties pictured above.

I was lucky enough to see one actually awake! He (let's just assume it's a male) loved getting his picture taken. He even started climbing down the tree toward me. For a moment I thought he was literally going to jump into my arms. I wouldn't have minded at all--heck, a huge part of me wanted it to happen. Screw the razor sharp claws, I've been dying to cuddle a koala since I got here.

He didn't seem to care for the law, so I didn't either. Because, y'know, I often take behavioural cues from koalas.

But alas, the group was leaving and he hadn't made it down the tree. So I scrambled to take a few more shots and left. Here's to hoping the koala laws in New South Wales aren't as strict as Victoria's!