Koala Climb

The Canopy

Up a river red gum, one branch at a time. Nothing is on a clock — the branch under you is the clock. Thick limbs hold for a while but lead sideways; the thin ones go straight up and start creaking almost at once. The fresh tips grow out at the ends, where every branch is thinnest.

• Left and right walk the branch. Walk all the way in to the trunk and keep going to step around to the other side
• Up reaches for a branch you overlap — one press, one reach. Holding it down will not climb the tree for you
• Watch out for a gust (you cannot reach while it blows), a branch so comfortable you doze off, and a kookaburra who will spring you upward if you go and say hello