Tips & Recipes
Tips from the pros: Koala spotting down under
Henrietta Christie shares her koala spotting strategy
January 22, 2026
Along with GC ambitions, our EF Education-Oatly squad had another key goal during their time in Australia: spot koalas in the wild.
Every visitor to Australia hopes to catch sight of the tree-dwelling marsupials and our riders have been determined to make the most of their time down under. Fortunately, Henrietta Christie’s time-tested koala spotting strategy has served the squad well.
“One of our first days here, we saw two koalas and I spotted both of them!” Henri said. “I really struggled the first time I did the Tour Down Under. I didn’t see any koalas. And then my second year here, I was riding next to a friend who is the queen of spotting koalas, just unbelievable. I asked her for her secret and she said you’ve just got to look for a blob. And so that’s what I do. I then focus on the blob to see if it’s a koala blob or if it’s just shaded tree branches.”
Stina Kagevi has seen Henri’s technique in action, but is still a rookie herself.
“I need to properly learn from Henrietta how to spot a koala,” Stina said. “She said you look up at the trees in the shade and just look for a big gray dot. I’m not so good at it because it goes so fast when you’re riding. How do you see that?! But Henri is good at it. I’ve seen koalas in the wild before and it’s just as good as I remembered. It’s just a fluffy little bear up in the tree!”
While this is Henri’s fourth year of starting her racing season in Australia, her teammate Noemi Rüegg added an extra dimension to koala spotting.
“You know the yellow car game where you whack the person next to you when you see a yellow car? It’s quite an aggressive game,” Henri explained. “We started this at a training camp in Sierra Nevada. So Noemi had the idea that we should do it like with yellow car but instead of hitting each other, we give each other a hug like a koala. That is such a typical Noemi, wholesome idea for a game.”
Not surprisingly, Noemi is a big fan of her game.
“Every time you see a koala, you know you will get a hug or you know you can give a hug so that’s a big motivation,” she said.
Alice Towers is new to EF Education-Oatly this season and now that she’s been able to successfully support Noemi in her quest to win a second consecutive title at the Tour Down Under, she can relax and focus more on koala spotting.
“I would like to spot a koala solely by myself,” Alice said. “The only time I’ve ever seen one is because someone else has pointed one out to me. I’m the last person to see it, looking around while they’re all pointing at it and I’m thinking, ‘What are you pointing at?’ I’ve never actually just looked up and seen one so I’ll be really pleased if I can just look up and see a koala.”
While the squad appreciates any wildlife spotting, Noemi said that koalas are the grand prize.
“We’ve been talking a lot about koalas and yesterday Mags spotted a kangaroo but the excitement wasn’t that much in the group. For me, kangaroos are super cute. If I saw a kangaroo, I would be super happy, but koalas are extra special.”
Noemi did admit that there is some wildlife she is hoping to avoid.
“I hope I never see a snake,” she said. “I’m a bit scared of them. Every pee stop we do, we have to be really careful of snakes. And also spiders. Spiders are my worst fear. If I saw a big spider, we’d have a big problem.”
