A Surprise in the Trees

I woke up at 8am. I got into my last pair of underwear and went to the laundry room.

I washed my clothes, ate breakfast and put my clothes on the line. I came into my room where Martin and another guy was cleaning my room. When I was just beside Martin he yells “HOUSEKEEPING!!!”, Martin has such a good humor, ahahah….  I told them “I will think about you when I am laying on the beach, with a cocktail in my hand and the sun is shining, while you are doing housekeeping” Martin was quick “ ahh.. it is okay we will soon finish the cleaning, we just smash this room and then we are done.”

I have Packed a quick bag with a towel, sunscreen, mosquito repellent, a power bank and snacks.

I got to the reception at 10am

Off we go!!! Kathie drove us to the ferry in the shuttle bus. We sailed at 10:30am and were on the island at around 11am. We got a bus ticket for the whole day and took the bus to Horseshoe bay.

We found a good cafe to have brunch on the beach. We bought a 6 pack of beer and hoped to go with the bus down to alma beach (a much nicer beach), but unfortunately there was another hour till the bus was going. We walked to the tip of the beach to have a photoshoot, it was a lot of fun, but we forgot the time and missed the bus…. We looked at the map and decided to go for a third beach just 1 km through the jungle on the other side of that mountain. But it was 1 km in birds’ line, it was steep up and down off road terrain, it took us about 35 minutes to get there to figure out that we couldn’t go in the water and we were all starting to get dehydrated, because we had forgot to bring water. We took some pictures of the beach and turned around to get back to civilization and have something to drink. We got back and went straight to the convenience store and bought a lot of water and a banana to get some energy back. We started to feel better and the time was flying, 02:50pm. We made a plan, since next bus was at 03:55pm we decided to order a taxi and go to Alma bay and chill on the beach, swim and later take the bus to hopefully see the wild koalas before sundown. We had a really good time on the beach making some funny videos. Kenzo and I went body surfing on the waves, it was So Funny!!!! We stayed on the beach till 05:30pm. At 05:50pm we took the bus to the forths walk (koala walk) to hopefully see wild koalas. We walked towards the forths at 06pm, we were so excited to see a wild koala. We asked people on the way up, the first we asked said just 200meters to the right, we didn’t see anything, the second we asked said just 5 minutes to the left and third we asked said they saw three different but the closest one was 15 minutes to the right, Faaak!!!! We didn’t see any koalas?? After 40 minutes we saw a wild rock wallaby, 5 minutes later we decided to turn around, because it was starting to get really dark. We saw the same wallaby on our way back, but no koalas. We were starting to give up, but then all of a sudden Allison said Look!! And there it was, after an hour, The Koala. Such a kind animal, he didn’t bother we were looking at him. I got so close I could break off some of the good leaves he couldn’t reach, and I hand fed him, he seemed thankful and took the branch and started eating. What an amazing experience to see a wild koala and even hand feed it.

After feeding and taking pictures with the koala we headed back and waited for the bus to go to the city. We took the bus at 07:25pm in completely darkness back to the ferry. We found out that the restaurants on the island close at 08pm and decided to take the ferry back to Townsville. We walked along the beach for 20 minutes up till dominos pizza. Kenzo was like, we order pizza first the uber will be here in 3 minutes, we ordered pizza and they were ready after 15 minutes. Then Kenzo ordered an uber, it said 18 minutes till arrival….?? Told ya. So, we ate the pizzas at the pizzeria and brought the remaining’s back to the hostel.

What a good Day :). I collected my laundry and went to my room to relax.

10:30pm I spoke to Nile, since Kimberly told us she is having the next week off, so we don’t have any one to drive us to work.

Nile said that they tried to ask how we are going to get to work on Thursday, but they never really got an answer. So, Thursday we just get ready as normal and hope we get picked up. Kimberly said that if no one could drive us we would probably have a week off aswell, if that is the case we will take it from there…

Enjoy some of our pictures from Magnetic island!

 

 

A lot to do

Sunday was reptile day.

I went on background cleaning and feeding with Jess and Nile (the new volunteer). I got to do some of the really funny things, while Jess and Nile did the cleaning, I got send back to the kitchen because Jess has forgotten the bucket with the Kangaroo food in the kitchen. When I got back to the kitchen the roo bucket wasn’t there, I asked Pio if he had seen it, he had no idea. I guess Nile didn’t knew they were supposed to have a bucket for the evening and a bucket for the morning the next day. I know what is in it on Sundays, so I made a quick cut, slice and cut and there we go, a new bucket of kangaroo food. I rushed up to Jess and they were not finished with the cleaning yet. One of the kangaroos were trying to scratch under its head, so I helped it, Jess asked me if she could have my phone to take a picture of me and the roo? Sure! Then she was all like, you can have a video aswell, look at the camera. After the photoshoot Jess said she would help Nile finish up the roo yard and handed me her keys, so I could start on the next enclosure. I made a quick kangaroo food right and I got trusted with the keys, buuhjaaa.

During foodpreperation, kim asked me to clean the veno pit for the venomes snake show. I did a quick cleaning and asked Jess if I could go to see the snake show, Jess replied, “you might aswell do the reptile show” and after reptile show Kimberly said I could help her with the crocodile show, where I got to feed the smaller 2-meter freshwater crocodiles.

There were a lot of people in the park, because there is free entry all of march because it is the low season and it is always funnier to preform shows to a 100 than 10 visitors.

After reptile show I followed Kimberly around feeding snakes and lizards and guarded the door while she fed the venomes snakes.

We were back at the hostel at 05:20om, What a good day.

I have Monday off, where I have planned to go to magnetic island with Carolina, Kenzo and maybe Allisson. We meet in the reception at 10am

A new volunteer

Friday morning, I woke up with a new roomie. She arrived late Thursday, I didn’t notice since I got to bed early to be ready for work.

So, I got up and got ready as usually and then just before I went down stairs to get picked up by Kimberly she asked me if we were going to get picked up now? I thought to myself “WE” oh, you are a new volunteer at the sanctuary? And she is, her name is Nile and she is from Germany so now we are back to two German volunteers, but luckily, she speaks okay English.

It was a good day at the sanctuary and Nile got started with the work.

In the evening i made dinner with Jarla and Nile.

Saturday, I learned that a Car is Called a UTE (Ju:t/Yoot) short for “utility vehicle”. I went in the UTE!!!! With Tabs (Tabatha) and a local volunteer, Cathrine to do the afternoon feeding, there were only two seats so I sat on the back, it was so funny… and a bit scary, since the paths were really bad to drive by car.

Saturday evening Kenzo wrote to me, him, Carolina and some other were down at The Courtyard having a beer if I would like to join?

Sure, why not, I brought Nile, so she could meet some people and see the city aswell, it was really nice and cozy (Hyggeligt). Martin was there too and a new girl from America, Alisson and she was about to start as a night guard at the hostel, just like Kenzo.

Found a Frog

The UTE

Spaghetti with Meatballs for Dinner