Possibly it will surprise you that I don't believe in a global flood. There are MANY reasons for that.

A. The kind of multiple miracles required of God to pull off a global flood are certainly within his capability, but the rest of the Bible lets us know that it's not his modus operandi. It's not the way God does things. A flood of continental proportions, but not global, is much more like the God we see in the rest of the Bible.

B. In Gn. 41.57 we read that "all the countries came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph because the famine was severe in all the world." Really? the Australians came? The Mayans? Alaskan eskimos were there? I think not. We find out from the same author in the same book that "all" is used either hyperbolically or contextually, and doesn't really mean "all the world." In its context it means all the countries in the region of the ancient Near East. Hm. It makes one wonder if that's what it means in Gen. 6-8.

The ancient view of the world (according to Akkadian texts and Babylonian maps), was a land disk of about 3,000 miles stretching from the mountains of southern turkey in the north to southeast Iran, to the east to the Zagros mountains, and the west into the Mediterranean. Is this what Noah understood by "the whole world"? It's likely. It's possible that "destroy all life" denotes the scope of the physical flood, from the vantage point of the author, for the intended population. Such a phrase could also denote the completeness of God's judgment, conveying that God would judge every creature that has the breath of life in it that he intends to judge.

C. It's not consistent with what we know of God to judge people who had not been adequately warned. God is always fair that way. In the end times, yes, the whole world is at stake, because the whole world knows. But in those days, we know from 2 Peter 2.5 that Noah was a preacher of righteousness to the ancient world. Here we go again. Noah went to South America? New Zealand? Hawaii? Obviously not. We have to think contextually again. Noah was a preacher of righteousness to the people of his region.

D. The Nephilim were still around after the flood. They are mentioned again in Num.13.33.

So saying (and there is more to all of this, but I don't want to write to much all at once), I don't think the flood was global, but a humonstrous regional (continental?) flood that destroyed the life that was in its wake. In this sense the judgment of God is fair (it affects the people who were offenders), Noah still needed a barge to save himself and the animal life in a several thousand mile radius, and all of this happened easily before 10,000 BC and possibly before 20,000. The population of the area would have been minimal (the ancient Near East was pre-historic before 7000 BC).

So the koala didn't need to get there. The flood didn't affect them. I bet you have lots of others questions now. Glad to talk more.

Consider the Koala bear. How did it survive the great flood?

A male and female Koala bear traveled to the ark and walked right on. How did they get from Australia to the ark? I guess they swam. If God helped them to swim from Australia all the way to the ark, why did they even need to go to the ark? Why couldn't they just swim until it was over and that would have elliminated the need for them to swim all the way back to Australia after the flood subsided? Because there was a big boat for all the animals to live on safely.

Did they pack enough eucalyptus leaves with them for the trip both ways and the stay on the ark?

I guess they didn't need to eat during this time. How did they keep from getting eaten by larger carnivores on the way, while on the ark, or more importantly after the flood? I guess large carnivores didn't need to eat at all for many years after the flood until the all the species had multiplied greatly.

With all these "supernatural" aspects to the story, why even include a big boat to give the story some "natural" explanation? Wouldn't it be easier to say that God miraculously spared the animals?