Friday 14th Jan

In the morning Jess had gone to work and it was storming outside. Lisa and I chilled out and had some breakfast chatting to Debbie and David, and they gave us waterproof jackets and an umbrella each as we planned to visit Billabong zoo for the morning. We set off and the first stop at the zoo was the Koala talk. Walking into the area and seeing them snuggled up into little balls was great. They were even cuter than what I had expected and at the end of the talk we were able to pat one - Lisa and I were like little girls again overcome with excitement by this fluffy creature we hadn't come across before.

Next up we saw some spider monkeys and skipped the talk to walk onto the kangaroo and wallaby area as there were three little screaming boys we were trying to avoid. I really loved the kangaroos, they were a lot smaller than I expected and very tame. We had some food and I put it I my hand for them to wrap their little claws around and eat out of, while Lisa dropped it on the floor slightly scared of the amount of them bounding towards us. There was a mother one with a little joey in her pouch too - very cute!
We wandered around the park and saw other various animals which included meerkats (always my fave), dingos, a huge crocodile called Shrek, penguins and lots of birds. It was pretty wet but we managed to keep warm and then went into the town to a place called 'Bels Bakery' which Debbie and David had recommended.

Our next stop was the koala hospital, a place which had been opened as a type of rescue centre which gave free tours everyday at 3pm. We arrived early so checked out the souvenirs all which support the koala's, I bought a couple of postcards and some koala dangly earrings and donated to them. Whilst we were there they brought in an injured female Koala who was quite old and seemed to have an infection in her eyes. A lot of Koalas suffer from chlamydia and that seemed to be the issue with this one which was now being taken to the vets to get checked over before they placed her at the hospital. The large group which had now arrived got split into two, and we ventured out to look at the different areas the koalas were kept in depending on their diagnosis. They were named after the street they were found in (as if they recover they are returned to the area as they are territorial) followed by a second name of the person who found them or a chosen name by that person. There was a list on the board of things wrong, whether been found on the floor, attacked by dogs or simply infections and a routine of what needs to be done to care for them. We walked around in the rain (now quite heavy) and learnt about the patients and the staff were very engaged and caring.

All koala'd-out, we got back to Debbie and David's and had a cup of tea, chatted to them and got a shower. Jess arrived home with Matt and checked shirts on something which is an Australian look, and with beer bottles purposely in brown paper bags laughing at how Lisa and I had said the day before only the image of alcoholics do that in England. Debbie and David cooked us a delicious Bbq dinner and we all sat drinking in the lounge area. After dinner, we'd all had a few drinks and thought it would be a good idea to head out to a local bar so all got a taxi out. Not long after arriving at the first bar, Jess's friend was giving us free shots of tequila which is always a bad ending for me. The bar closed after our first drink in there so we decided to walk onto the next place. It was more of a club type scene, unfortunately Matt hadn't brought his ID out so he couldn't get in. The rest of us carried on and danced the night away before I wasn't well and Debbie got us kicked out for supposedly being too drunk and unable to sit on her stool - the kind of behaviour that reminded me very much of my mum as well. It was time for us to have got home anyway and we all crashed out when we got back.

xxx