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Hello and welcome back to Koala Moon, a podcast of original children's bedtime stories and meditations designed to make bedtime a dream. If you like to travel or test yourself on how well you know the names of the seven seas or all the flags of the different countries, you are going to really, really love Tonight's sweet adventure, we're joining two explorers, a polar bear and a penguin, each with a similar dream to journey to the other side of the world. The penguin wants to go to the North Pole and the polar bear to the south. It's often said that polar bears have never seen penguins and and vice versa, since they live at opposite poles of the world. But these two explorers, Cubby and Perry, vow to change that forever. It's a long, wild adventure for the two animals and they see more than they ever could have dreamt of. Let's get ready to journey along with them, shall we? What do you need to do to get in the listening mood? Clear your mind, concentrate on the sound of your breathing, perhaps stretch your arms and legs. I know. Practice a yawn. Whatever it takes. Let's do it for the next 10 seconds or so. Before we begin, a quick message for the grown ups. If you'd like to support our podcast, enjoy ad free listening, unlock four bonus stories per month and much, much more. You can join Koko Club. Subscribe in just two taps via the link in the show notes, but now here's a quick word from our sponsors. Ok, brilliant. It's now time to begin Cubby and Perry's Polar Whoopsie by Jane Thomas. Have you ever heard that polar bears and penguins have never met? It's one of those things that everyone believes, like leopards can't change their spots and tigers can't change their stripes and that zebras are black with white stripes. But that just isn't true. Imagine wearing the same thing every single day. It would quickly get more than a little bit boring, wouldn't it? That's what leopards think too. So of course they change their spots. Sometimes they wake up in the morning and feel a bit more like the six on a dice. And sometimes more like the one or the two. They swivel their spots around to suit their mood. Tigers do the same thing if they have important meetings to go to. They add extra stripes. Where do you think the idea of pinstripe suits came from? And as for the zebras, they sometimes feel like adding white stripes to a black background and on other days, for no reason, they can put their hoof on. They feel like putting black stripes on a white background. These are all very subtle differences, of course, and unless you know them very well on first name terms, that sort of thing, you probably wouldn't notice. So leopards and tigers and zebras used to have a jolly good time changing up their spots and stripes on a whim, until they realised that scientists were watching them very closely indeed. They came to an agreement that whenever a scientist was around, they'd switch back to the same display of spots or stripes. It was their way of getting one over the scientists. You see those people who came around in ridiculous safari hats and long shorts with long socks, and who hummed and whored with pens and paper and who thought they knew everything about everything. Well, turns out they don't. And leopards and tigers and zebras have a lot of laughs about that. So now that you know this, perhaps you won't be surprised to hear that of course, polar bears and penguins have met quite regularly. In fact, you understand why this is strange. Polar bears live at the North Pole and penguins live at the south. That's quite literally an entire world between them. And so it's fair to assume they've never laid eyes on each other. But that belief has to be based on the idea that polar bears and penguins aren't smart enough to figure out that they live on the top and bottom of a very big ball and that perhaps they could find a way of travelling to the other side of it. Let's just say that when humans first arrived at the two poles over a hundred years ago, the first thing polar bears and penguins thought wasn't, what on earth is that strange new creature? Nope. The first thing that went through their minds was, well, about time. They'd been placing bets for centuries by this point. Polar bears believing that humans would make it to the north before they did the south, and penguins believing the opposite. For the record, polar bears were right by about two years. But that doesn't really matter, because what the people didn't realise is that they'd been watched and observed for so long, the polar bears were practically at the point of giving them a guided tour to the North Pole just because they couldn't stand to watch any more failed attempts at the mission. It's a long time since polar bears discovered they can clamber onto an ice floe, a huge sheet of floating ice, and steer it with the currents in the water and the stars in the sky, and hop over to visit the brown bears and the black bears and the grizzly bears that populate the less snow covered areas of the world. And it's been a long time since those polar bears realized that with the careful use of earth or coal, they could very easily disguise themselves as a different type of bear entirely. They've been spending summers in Yosemite and Yellowstone for generations, dressed up as grizzly bears, learning to catch salmon as they leap in the air and pluck the berries from the bushes. Of course, there's no place like home, so they always head back to the Arctic. Bears rule the Arctic to such an extent that they even gave it its name. Early explorers saw the stars in the sky that together looked like a huge bear and a small bear, and these hang right over the North Pole. They called this frozen northern mass of snow and ice Arctic, which, back in those days when people were still naming places, meant quite literally, bear. But because there were no bears in the sky over the South Pole, because those who placed the stars in the sky made copies of what they saw, and there were no bears in the south, you see, the same early explorers named it Antarctica, which honestly meant, and here's some great imagination for you, no bears. So ever since that happened, because of stars in the sky and bears posing on ice floes up in the north, scientists have believed that no polar bears have ever met penguins. This is in a world where whales will travel over 10,000 miles each year for bigger and better food sources, or sometimes just to get into warmer waters. Albatrosses have been known to travel up to 50,000 miles in a single trip. So in this extraordinary world, where turtles will travel thousands upon thousands of miles, drifting through warm, salty seas to return to exactly the same beach where they were born in order to lay their eggs, Sometimes magical things do happen, even though it seems impossible. Here's the story of the first polar bear that headed south to meet the penguins. This all happened hundreds of years ago, possibly even thousands. It's hard to tell, because polar bears and penguins aren't quite as dedicated as humans to recording every little thing that happens in their lives. But this first polar bear, her little white ball of fluff, who was probably no taller than you are now, decided one day to climb onto an ice floe and see how far he could get. His name was Cubby. His surname was Perry. Something of a strange coincidence, given the first person to make it to the North Pole many, many years ago was called Robert Perry. These little coincidences are what makes life fun, don't you think? Cubby said goodbye to his mother and father, his older brother and his older sister, and they cheered and waved as he Set off, Cubby snuggled down into his bright blue bobble hat, an extra long scarf wound three times around his neck. They were brand new, specially knitted by his mother for the trip. And he sat on his ice floe and stared out at the scene around him that drifted slowly by. The sun sparkled in the sky and lit up the iceberg so they became a gorgeous turquoise colour, coated in a dazzling layer of snow. Everything he could see was blue or white or turquoise. The sea would sometimes turn grey on days when the sun didn't shine and clouds crowded the skies. And at night the sea became black. He loved best the clear nights when the stars shone in the sky and were reflected back in the smooth sea. So when he sat on an ice floe, he felt as though he was drifting into eternity, with nothing above him and nothing below. Sometimes the sky at night would light up in great sweeping colours, with greens and reds and yellows and pinks, swirling and swooping around. He had learned these were the northern lights, the aurora borealis. And he loved these colours even more than the blues of the sea and the ice and the sky. It was so rare that he got to see them, and that made them even more special. Cubby drifted south, and as he went, the rugged snow covered mountains became lower and lower and the ice floes became more and more spread out. It was after a few days of drifting and floating and bobbing gently up and down on the waves that Cubby started to wonder where he was. And he called to a passing whale. Why? Said the whale. You're in the Atlantic Ocean, of course, and headed due south. By watching the stars at night, Cubby could be sure he was still headed south. And as he headed south, the air and the water became warmer and warmer. The ice floe started to melt, but Cubby didn't have a moment to be worried as a group of dolphins appeared and showed him how to ride on their backs, taking it in turns to move the polar bear closer and closer to the equator, the invisible line that wraps itself around the centre of the world and keeps everything in place. In the distance, Cubby saw little clusters of islands. And for the first time, he saw the green of trees and jungles and the golden yellow of sands. And everything wasn't blue and white and grey the way it was back home. He nudged the dolphins and asked them to go closer to the islands. And from his viewpoint, Cubby managed to see parrots that were bright red and the yellowest bunches of bananas drooping from trees and flowers that were pinker, even than the skies when the northern light shone their best. Cubby saw colours that he had never known existed. And by daring to clamber ashore, he tasted fruits he had never known and felt grass tickling beneath his paws. Not knowing what sand was, he buried his face as if it was snow coming up. COUGHING and spluttering A monkey guided him to a stream and showed Cubby how to wash the sand from his mouth and nose. And when he was quite done coughing and spluttering, Cubby noticed the monkey. And what a very strange creature he was. Nothing like those he knew from home. Cubby watched as parrots every colour of the rainbow swooped from the trees and scooped water from the stream into their beaks. Flashes of red feathers and blue feathers and green feathers so bright he had to lift his paw above his eyes to take away some of the shine. He continued his journey south on the backs of sea turtles who drifted as gently as the ice floes he knew so well. And as he went south from the equator, he. The air became cooler once more and the sea was not quite so warm. And the turtles passed him over to a whale who was happy to go south and be colder than they wanted to be all this time. As Cubby was drifting slowly from the north to the south, a penguin was making his way from the south to the north. This penguin, a fluffy little chick, a mass of warm feathers, is called Perry. Perry's last name was Amundsen, and by an extraordinary coincidence, Roald Amundsen was the name of the very first person to ever reach the South Pole. As I said before, it is these wonderful coincidences, moments of magic, that really keep the world turning. Perry had been brought up in a group of well over a thousand penguins. While he knew who his mum and his dad were, he also knew hundreds of aunties and uncles, bonus grandmas and grandpas, cousins and second cousins and third cousins twice removed. While polar bears live in smaller groups, penguins love to hang out together. Perry liked this way of life. He liked always having someone to go and mess about on the ice slides with, or see how long they could hold their breath underwater or go sliding on the glassy ice rink. But more and more, he wanted to know what was beyond this world. He was sure that if he followed the stars, he could go to the other side of the world. Perry clambered onto an ice floe, waving goodbye to a few thousand penguins who all waved back with their strange little wings, flapping as furiously as they could in farewell. The fluffy little chick adjusted his hat and scarf, pulling them on tight and sat back to watch the world go by just as Cubby had. Perry saw a world made of blues and whites and greys. Sometimes, during the summer months, some of the snow would melt from the mountains and there would be jagged stretches of brown rocks reaching up towards the sky. Sometimes, when it was so cold, Perry, a penguin designed for these temperatures, reached for a second and a third scarf. The ice would be so cold that it would almost turn turquoise. These were the only colours the little penguin knew, apart from the few times when, in the depths of winter, huge sweeps of green and pink and yellow and red would dance across the skies. The Southern lights, or the Aurora Australis to give them their formal name, lit up the night sky in the way the Northern lights did for Cubby. Perry loved it when the water was especially still and the colours were seen both above and below. He felt as if he was floating on some kind of magical rainbow when this happened, heading off into the universe in flashes of glorious light. As Perry went further and further north, the sea and the air became warmer and warmer and his ice floe began to shrink. A passing seal obliged by giving the little fluffy chick a lift. And the penguin sat atop the seal's head watching his whiskers glisten with silver sparkles of water that danced like diamonds. He asked the seal where he was and the seal turned and smiled and said, why, he was in the Pacific Ocean, of course, and Perry beamed at the water all around him and rolled the name off his tongue a few times. Perhaps you will have realised the strangest part of this story by now, which is that at just the point Cubby was crossing from the northern to the southern hemisphere on the back of a turtle, Perry was doing exactly the same thing, except they were thousands of miles apart because Cubby happened to have journeyed south by way of the Atlantic Ocean and Perry happened to have ventured north by way of the Pacific. And so these two great adventurers, Cubby and Perry, went south and north almost in perfect harmony with one another. The one balanced out the other. Whereas Cubby passed by the islands of the Caribbean, Perry was lucky enough to see those of Hawaii. Perry watched from the back of a turtle as the islands grew larger and larger and he asked if they could go nearer. And eventually he braced himself to land. The sand was black, but sparkled in the sun as if it was filled with silver and gold and jewels. Some of the land near the edge was painful. Beneath his feet, jagged black rocks that had been formed thousands of years ago from lava that poured from the volcanoes. The islands were covered in jungles of green with flowers bigger than even the biggest penguin Perry had ever known. A rabbit appeared just as fluffy and white as Perry and around the same size too. And he guided the penguin chick into a glorious garden. The rabbit showed him how to eat pineapples and mangoes and bananas. He showed him star fruit and strawberry guavas and the tiniest shiny red chili peppers that warmed Perry in a way he'd never known at home. The rabbit guided him to the edge of a mountain. And at night, when the sky was black and the only lights were the stars in the sky, the mountain glowed and bubbled with red and orange that danced and flashed against the black of the night. And just as Cubby was arriving into Antarctica, floating on an ice floe and peering at a group of small black and white creatures that waved wildly at him with strange, stubby little arms. So Perry floated into the Arctic. He leaned back and looked at all the huge white bears that smiled down at him and welcomed him with open arms. Perry learned the meaning of a bear hug that day. A small fluffy bundle passed from bear to bear, who snuggled the little body close and kept him warm. And Cubby learned what it was to have a thousand other creatures looking after you all, moving around and taking it in turns to stand on the outside of the circle and face the coldest air before moving into the warmth in the centre. The polar bears showed Perry where Cubby had set off, pointing out into the vast blueness of the Atlantic Ocean. And the penguins showed Cubby where Perry had set off, waving towards the ever reaching greyness of the Pacific. It was one of those strange moments in history when everyone realised exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. The only reason those penguins could meet a polar bear was because one as brave as Cubby had set out on an adventure to the south. And of course, the only reason the polar bears met a penguin was because of Perry and his daring expedition to the north. And it struck all of them, in particular the two adventurers, that it was such a shame that Cubby and Perry hadn't had the chance to meet. Because, after all, they were so very alike. Can you imagine, it took five whole years for Cubby and Perry to meet. Each year they would head south or north in the hopes of finding the other. And each year, it just so happened that when one took the Pacific, the other took the Atlantic. But finally, the whales and the seals and the turtles and the dolphins had all had enough conversations with each other to realise what was going on. And they spread the message that this year both the polar bear and the penguin must use the Pacific route for their travels. And they agreed that they would guide the two animals to the same spot in the middle of the ocean, to a place they called Rapa Nui. Rapa Nui is a wild, desolate place, an island with nothing to the north or south or east or west for thousands of miles. It's also known as Easter Island. And one of the most curious things about this extraordinary place is that there are close to a thousand huge stone statues carved by Polynesian people some 500 years ago. Some of these are almost 10 metres high and weigh as much as 40 elephants. How they ever came to be created, with their broad noses and huge chins and hats and ears and eyes and expressions, is something of a mystery even today. White coral was used to colour the eyes and a red rock to make the top of the heads. And it is in this incredible place that the first meeting between two of the world's greatest explorers ever took place. For this is where Cubby and Perry were brought on. The backs of sea turtles floating up and down on the waves for day after day, the one heading south and the other heading north. They met on a sweeping curve of golden sand, and palm trees danced and swayed on the fringes. The colours of the sand and the trees still caught the polar bear and the penguin by surprise, so different are they to anything seen in the vast whiteness of the frozen north and south poles of the world. So, you see, there are things that happen that cannot be understood or even known by science. Leopards change their spots and zebras and tigers change their stripes. And every year, under the light of the stars and on the softest of golden sands, at least one penguin and one polar bear leave their homes and meet to dance and sway and share their hopes and dreams. They share stories of sliding on the ice and diving into soft mounds of snow, and of looking up at skies where sweeps of red and pink and green swirl and whirl through the night. And then they pull coconuts from the trees and drink to the memory of the very first penguin and polar bear who made the journey. Looking back on the adventures of Cubby and Perry and believing, just as they did all those centuries ago, that anything is possible when you wish upon a star. Sam. Sa.