Up the ali: Magnetic island, day one

So today we were off to magnetic island or Maggie as it's affectionately called by the locals. We jumped on our iow style ferry and were there before we knew it.

First task of the day was getting to the hostel, and one grumpy bus driver later we had arrived. It's a beach front hostel and we ended up with a pretty damn good view from our dorm.

And again just to rub it in.

We'd met 2 sisters called Rachel and Becky back in Townsville and we all decided to go visit the animal sanctuary in the island. One trip back onto the bus, with the same grumpy driver, and we'd arrived at the destination. The 4 of us were uncontainable excited, the reason will be revealed soon. The sanctuary was very hands on and our guide was brilliant taking us round all the animals and telling us all about them.

First up was the fresh water turtles. The fun fact we learnt here is that they don't actually have these living wild on the island, and you can probably guess why.. No fresh water!! These guys were rescued from being pets and were affectionately called Donatello, Leonardo and Michelangelo. This is Donatello, the one that doesn't bite tourists.

Next up was the red tailed black cockatoo, this guy liked all the single ladies as we all got kisses from him.

Pucker up...

Next was the white one, and yes the proper name has sadly been forgotten by me. This one was pretty noisy and made us aware she was there. Apparently farmers aren't so keen on these guys in the wild and happily shoot them. Seems really mean as they are so pretty.

The wombat, this little guy is nocturnal so had to be woken up. He looked pretty cushty on her lap though. He ended up at the sanctuary after his mum got run over by a car, luckily the driver checked the mums pouch and found this little one.

Not gonna lie, he's not the cutest animal but his closest relative in the animal world is the koala, which gives him bonus points in my book.

So next up the highlight of the day, KOALA TIME. Not sure how we'd managed to wait for this part. We were all so excited at getting to hold one. This was basically the only thing i really really wanted to do when in oz, so it was a life long ambition fulfilled for me. (That's what having a childhood toy of a koala does to you, good old white one ted)

So excited!!

There was still so much to do after aswell. We saw fresh water crocs,

And the much more deadly salt waters croc, which I got to hold.

... Well it wasn't gonna be an adult one guys!! This fella was a 3 years old. After being so daring I went crazy and started to hold everything even a snake.

The tour was amazing if you guys are ever that way in the world, I'd completely recommend. We ended by feeding the birds. Which was CRAZY. They were everywhere and landed on anything including my head.

Sorry about the creepy child in the below picture, actually scared me when I looked back at the pictures as I don't remember her being there at all, just bogging at me....