So let me understand this. koala’s are so thirsty they are begging water from cyclists.
Cyclists are riding through fire area’s? Don’t think so.
I also have a hard time believing that a wild animal, like a koala knows what a water bottle is.
I’m more inclined to believe the video was shot in an animal sanctuary where the animals are conditioned to humans and trained to go for the bottles.
More so, the smoke from a wildfire gets pretty think for many, many miles around the fire. Not too many cyclists will go for a pleasure ride in those conditions. They need to draw strong breaths.
I grew up in an area with a large (relatively speaking) koala population and had several koala’s living on our property.
Wild koala’s approaching humans in times of distress was rare, but not unheard of, 30+ years ago. I witnessed one such koala approach my father and others who were clearing trails after a particularly bad bushfire.
Back then there wasn’t to proliferation of water bottles so one of the guys poured water into his hardhat and the koala drank from that.
A koala isn’t the brightest animal, but they are smarter than birds and birds figure out real quick what water bottles are.
As for the cyclists, no idea. But considering there are about 12 million hectares (approx. 46,000 square miles or the size of the state of Mississippi) that has already been burnt over the last couple of weeks, there would be plenty of places people could ride bikes to check out the devastation without running into the active fire front or heavy smoke.
Not saying the story is accurate, but it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility.