SYDNEY - Two giant Chinese pandas began a decade-long stay in Australia Saturday with star treatment, with a refrigerated police escort and green lights all the way to their new home, officials said.

Wang Wang, four, and his three-year-old female companion Funi were whisked from the airport to Adelaide Zoo in the comfort of a climate-controlled semi-trailer, after arriving on a chartered jumbo jet from China.

They went straight into quarantine and were enjoying some specially delivered bamboo from their home in Sichuan Province, where the Panda Protection and Research Centre at Ya'an offered them on long-term loan.

"They're doing really well, they've been offloaded and they're just sitting now," said Zoo spokewoman Emily Rice.

"They're in the quarantine area and they're very happy and relaxed."

The pandas will spend their first month in Australia quarantined in a new purpose-built enclosure, which features refrigerated rocks to help keep them cool through what is forecast to be a summer of record-breaking heat.

Their first public appearance will be on December 13, and zookeepers said they would focus on trying to breed panda cubs - a notoriously difficult task for the low-sexed creatures.

Tourism officials believe their ten-year stay could give the local economy a bigger boost than recent visits by Tiger Woods or Lance Armstrong, in a "financial bonanza" worth an estimated 600 million dollars (584 million US).