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Published: September 4th 2011
Caroline and Dexter
Caroline was trying to look composed, and Dexter just flopped in Carolines armsBlog Day 1014 (This is correct)
Today was Thursday, we have been married for 21 Fun packed years. The Caroline I live with in Australia, is different to the one we left behind in the UK and that is the truth.
I always liked the UK model, she was great fun, very hard working, great company and loyal, the list is not exhaustive, but the Australian model is all of the above, but somehow better, more fun, likes a beer, and is even funnier than the last one. I do love you Caroline.
21 years ago today, just kids standing in Romsey Abbey, getting married a life time ago, and lifetime I would not change for the world.
We woke to another beautiful morning on Magnetic Island, our adventures for the day planned, we had breakfast as usual, loaded the Suzuki and drove to Horseshoe bay to have a Coffee and watch the world go by, on Route of course we popped in to see if our “Urban Koala” had moved, it had, it was at the very top of the tree now.
We needed to be at the Magnetic Island Koala Sanctuary at 12.00 for
Andy and Cocky
I've prpbably got bird flu now,but isn't he gorgeaous. the start of the tour that we had booked. So we headed to Horseshoe Bay first for a leisurely coffee in the sunshine.
As usual we were there prepped in plenty of time, paid our money, we both got a big bottle of water each and as the day was already baking we had our hats and then we were ready and waiting for the ranger.
On the stroke of Midday a young female ranger came over to us and said “are you on the tour?” All two of us stood up and if so we could start walking through the sanctuary with her.
Brilliant we thought, just us, no one to get in the way, as being our anniversary we always like to do special things and today was no exception, today we were going to hold a Koala. Caroline has done this before at Australia Zoo in 2007, but I never have, and goodness me I was excited.
We followed the ranger and came to the first exhibit, she picked this Turtle out of the pond and asked me if I wanted to hold it, “ehm yes, why not, I’ll give it a go.”
Ah,the old sunflower trick
This picture shows how big this bird was, if you size it against Caroline She placed the turtle in my hands and this creature, stretched out its neck out and just looked at me, the Ranger told me to stroke its neck, it was so soft, just like velvet really. I handed it to Caroline and not long after the creature was returned to its pond.
At this point two French lads joined us, they apologised for being late and had a look at the Turtles and we all moved on.
The next thing on our tour was the Sulphur Crested Cockatoo, these we have seen all the way around Australia, these are the Hooligans of the natural world, they think nothing of destructing the foliage in the trees and make hell of a racket.
The Lady Ranger told us this Cockatoo’s name but said, it hates men, and generally its best left alone, so It may be safer to just look at him, in the same compound was an enormous Red Tailed Black Cockatoo, this one just loved people so much so she said we could handle him and feed him but we had to pass him backwards and forwards between each other a few times, giving him the impression
that he has been handled and fed by a lot of people, as he gets offended if there are not so many people.
He was put on my arm, he was a big creature, the Ranger said it was important that you kept him sort of face height, or else he may flap. I put a sunflower seed in my mouth showed him I had it and he gently took it off me, this was great fun and we did it several times, I passed him to Caroline and he didn’t seem to get on so well with Caroline, she fed him a couple of times, but he wanted to come back to me. This was great fun and such an amazing bird.
We put this fella back on his perch, and the ranger went and got 3 lizards to look at and hold, a Blue Tounge Skink, a Frilled Neck Lizard and one that I just can’t remember. They were pretty cool to hold and it was great to interact with these creatures.
The next on our list was a salt water Crocodile, it was just under a metre long (legal limit for us to be
able to handle crocodiles), its snout was all taped up, the ranger said even though this Crocodile was very young it still had the power to remove your finger.
Gosh, I stroked its belly and it was soft as silk, Caroline was looking at it, I could read her mind she was just thinking handbag! shoes! purse!
I handed the Crocodile to Caroline, neither of them looked that happy about the acquaintance, still they tolerated each other until Caroline handed it back to the ranger, the poor thing couldn’t get away fast enough from Caroline.
We walked on, the next bit was what we had come to see, fast asleep in a very low level tree was a Koala and it’s baby, just enjoying a snooze in the sun.
We oohed and ahhed at these beautiful creature’s, took plenty of snaps then moved on.
The next Koala, was a big fellow Called Dexter, he had been hand reared and was used to people, before we got our hand on him, we were coached how to hold him. Your right hand under his bum, at about the height of your belly button, about 6 inches out from
your stomach and your left hand supporting his back at about the height of your sternum., the strange thing here is usually they give you a girl Koala to hold as they are more docile, where the boys when its mating season are difficult to handle.
It was important to not move at all as they like to feel secure, and if you did move they think “Their Tree” is moving and they have a tendency to climb, and believe me you wouldn’t want one of these creatures climbing up you face, they are packing four really big claws on each paw, he looked more like Freddie Kruger from nightmare on Elm Street.
Dexter was peeled off the lady Ranger, I positioned my hands and he was placed in my arms, flipping heck he was heavy, apparently he weighed in at just over seven Kilo’s which is about average for a Northern Queensland Koala, down south they are much heavier and furrier as the weather is colder and need to stay warm, I agree with that one, living in Canberra.
Dexter was lovely, I was dying to smell him, yes that’s what I said, I wanted to
smell him as they smell lovely, they have a pungent smell of eucalypt, but the ranger said when we had all handled him, “I could have a crafty sniff”.
Once I had had my cuddle with Dexter, he was handed over to Caroline, and Caroline and Dexter seem to be comfortable with each other. I was busy taking pictures and Caroline and Dexter were busy getting to know each other, he had the cutest nose which looked like it was made of soft leather and as much as I wanted to give it a little rub I didn’t. Dexter was put back in his tree and we walked off to another creature that needed our attention and we were absolutely stoked about our Koala interaction.
We stood outside something that resembled a small glass shed and as we looked inside we could see some snakes. The ranger asked if we wanted to hold a python and we both said we did, so she went off and brought back a Carpet Python, which was gorgeous.
As I was holding the snake, Caroline was taking some photo’s, her camera lens has a hood on it and the snake just
stretched straight out and went up the lens hood and as hard as Caroline tried we just could not get a good close shot. She told me that where the snakes head was resting on the hood it actually felt very heavy, the lens was a bit greasy where the snake slobbered on it too!
We swapped over and Caroline held the Python, she looked exceptionally comfortable as did the snake. Caroline handed it to a French fella, he nearly had heart failure, credit to him, he was fighting his fear of snakes and did really well holding it for a few minutes and a photo, but was very eager to hand it over to the ranger.
Our tour was nearly over, but as we walked back the ranger said there is a spider that I want you to look at, I went cold, my thoughts were in free fall, I am absolutely terrified of spiders and I had visions of having to hold one, (No Chance), we both said “we are not holding a spider!”
The ranger went behind a counter and pulled a small plastic tank out and took the lid off, we looked inside,
there was a layer of silk, the ranger rang the spiders doorbell with a stick and on cue it made its appearance.
As it emerged from its home, the ranger said it is a whistling spider, it was, chocolate brown in colour and Tarantula sized and as she waved a little stick in front of it, it raised its two front legs, like it wanted to fight.
The ranger did say, don’t put your hand in as its bite is quite powerful?? Me put my hand in there are you mad? I thought, I just wanted to run. We asked the ranger where these could be found and she said ”Just about everywhere over the Island,” I nearly fainted, these are what my nightmares are made of. Actually we find out that these are just about everywhere across Australia, but the good news is that they are quite shy. Caroline took some photo’s, and I couldn’t wait to get away.
We had finished our walk in the Koala Sanctuary happy that our money would go to the preservation of wildlife, or maybe the owners new Mercedes Benz.
As we were walking back the ranger said if
Mmmm
This is either a Blue Tounged skink or a Bob tail Skink, I can't remember we walked through a section of wood land we would see some butterflies, and as we walked in they all took flight and it was amazing, we were told that the butterflies all flew from Queensland which was just astonishing and their journey was huge only to reproduce then die.
We were all done, we had an amazing time and we would recommend this Koala Sanctuary to everyone it was well worth it and it was something special for our special day.
It was time for our afternoon siesta so decided to head back to the hotel for a nana nap.
We had asked the hotel people if they would put some bits and pieces together as we were eating in style tonight, it was our intention to “Live it up” and go and have Fish and Chips, or in Caroline’s case, (Burger and Chips) down at Horseshoe bay again, siting at the picnic tables next to the beach whilst watching the sun going down.
Well the hotel came up trumps and put us a couple of China plates, Knives and Forks, a couple of Champagne glasses and cooler. We dutifully loaded the Suzuki jumped in
and headed down to the bay.
We grabbed a bottle of champagne from the local Bottle shop and then went in to the “Fish and Chip shop and placed our orders, we started yakking to the owner who said that the Fish and Chip shop was for sale, Mmmm that might be fun, we thought to ourselves.
Soon our Anniversary dinner was ready, we took it over to our “Table” adjacent to the beach and we served our dinner. I think it important to enjoy simple pleasure, we always seem to want, bigger, better, faster, when it’s the simple things in life we tend to forget about.
We ate our fare, it was magic, the sun going down over the ocean was spectacular and Caroline managed to grab a couple of photo’s, it was great fun and the bottle of fizzy bubbles went down a treat., what an amazing day we had, celebrating our 21st wedding anniversary.
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Jo Trouble
Jo McCarthy
Congrats!
Warmest congratulations on your 21st anniversary, may there be many many more :-) I doubt Dexter knew what a special occasion he was a part of!