It was a day of firsts today, as we took our first intrepid steps into the Adelaide Hills, saw our first wild snake (an Eastern Brown) and I cuddled (yes, cuddled) a real, live koala.

We got up early and cycled into the city to catch one of the few buses going up to Mount Lofty on a Sunday. It was already a scorcher of a day, at 24 degress at 9am. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the dream I'd had the night before that we'd overslept and had to go to Victor Harbour and go gambling instead (how odd) of Cleeland Wildlife Park hadn't come true.

We hopped on the bus and after some time we came to the summit of Mount Lofty, where the bus driver very kindly let us hop out and take pictures of the magnificent views over Adelaide. Back on the bus, we pulled up outside the Cleeland Wildlife Park and strutted through the entrance. Entry was a snip at $17 and one of the first animals we saw were two beautiful dingos. Unfortunately we couldn't feed them (I had, of course, bought some pellets with which to feed the animals at the entrance), but it put us in good stead to come face to face with more koalas than I have ever seen in one place. There were lots of them, sleeping, eating and - surprisingly - walking around their enclosure.

Cleeland Wildlife Park is totally dedicated to animals that are native to South Australia (or who used to be native to South Australia, like the Tasmanian Devil). Man of the animals are free to roam around, which is wonderful, because it means they can be stroked and fed and are very tame. We stroked a koala and then went to have a spot of lunch before tackling the rest of the park. First stop after lunch were the huge paddocks where roam Kanagaroo Island Kangaroos and Tamarind Wallabies. We had lots of fun - and got lots of marvellous pictures - with the kangaroos and we even got to see a mother suckling a joey, which buried it's head into her pouch. We hand fed them and it was completely marvellous. We saw lots of other animals as well - different breeds of roos and wallabies, emus, bandicoots, wombats, etc and then went up to watch the snakes being fed. There were rather a lot of disturbingly venomous snakes all in one place (browns, tigers, puff adders...) and they snapped at the dead mice like they hadn't eaten in a week (which they hadn't as they only get fed on a Sunday). After the snakes, we watched the Tasmania Devils being fed and then we wandered over to the koalas again, where this time I got to hold one. His name was Albert and his fur was very soft. He also munched eucalyptus leaves constantly in front of my face, so smelled like a blocked-up ear. He was extremely cute and rather heavy.

After that excitement, we visited the roos again and then had another bit of unexpected excitement over by the toilets and resturant. During the snake feeding, the keeper had said there were lots of wild brown snakes around the park but we didn't actually expect to see one. Amazingly, we were scoffing ice lollies and an Eastern Brown (very very venomous) slithered across the path not far from us. There was naturally a bit of uproar, as the staff kept an eye on it so they could catch it, because it had apparently been hanging around the toilet doors (incidentally, I had gone to the toilet about 5 minutes before, so this was certainly some unwelcome news).

We got home suitibly exhausted, having had to cycle the 10km from the city against a head-wind, but nothing can take away the sheer excitement of having cuddled a koala named Albert. I have a picture of this momentous event displayed prominently in our room and am never washing my hands again.