Tonka the wombat

We woke up to realise we had run out of bread so Rich quickly popped to the onsite shop to get some to make our picnic. The man was teasing Rich because he couldn't find the bread even though it was staring right at him.

By the time Rich was back from the shop, Rach pointed out that we had run out of butter for the bread so she went off to shop herself. The man must have thought we were a right pair.

Now fully equipped, we got the picnic ready and double checked the washing line for any of Rich's stuff that he may have left.

We checked out of the campsite and made the short 17km journey south of Townsville to Billabong Sanctuary.

Like at the Reef HQ, we were able to get a concession rate with our backpacker card which had proved to be handy already with lots of discounts on a range of attractions, shops and food outlets.

On all the leaflets the sanctuary had been described as the 'most interactive' sanctuary in Oz. Despite this, we were still shocked to see full size kangaroos roaming around the park along all the paths. They turned out to be really friendly and we got some seed to feed them. Like the wallabies in Melbourne, the kangaroos were quite ticklish when they took the food out your hand.

The sanctuary housed a range of animals including wombats, owls, cassowaries, freshwater crocodiles, estuarine crocs, emus, wallabies, kangaroos and koalas that you can cuddle! In Victoria you cannot cuddle koalas but in Queensland it's fine.

We headed to find the wombats first. We couldn't see them again and we were worried we would never get to see one. Wombats are related to the koala bears and, like their cousins; they sleep around 20 hours a day so they can be hard to spot as they sleep in their burrows.

Looking at our map, we were happy to see that there would be a wombat talk later on in the day so we hoped we would finally get to see one.

Throughout the day there were a range of different presentations on different animals and the opportunity to hold baby crocodiles, pythons and lizards.

We had missed the first talk but at 12.15pm we headed to the crocodile feeding 'show'. The two men doing the talk tried to tempt the crocodiles in to the water with huge chunks of meat but the crocs just wanted to sunbathe. The men gave a talk on crocodiles and explained how crocodiles are harmless. He gave a few odd comparisons saying how it was more likely that you would die from putting up a real Christmas tree. Apparently, on average three Australians die a year from watering their Christmas tree forgetting that they have lights on it whereas one person dies every two years from a crocodile attack (a.k.a. half a person a year as he like to put it!)

The crocodiles still didn't want to move so one of the men proceeded to hit the croc with the big chunk of meat! We couldn't believe it! Eventually, both crocs got into the water and started leaping in to the air to retrieve their food.

One of the men seemed really passionate about the crocodiles and told us we had nothing to fear about crocs. He said lots of stories we would hear would be absolute rubbish. He mentioned a case of a drunken teenager being eaten by a crocodile a few years back after jumping into infested waters. The newspaper headline was 'Man-eating monster eats boy day before his eighteenth birthday'. The man proceeded to say, 'do you think the croc knew it was the dude's birthday the next day????' This made the audience laugh but then he continued to say how 28 crocodiles were killed that day in search of the boy and how it was the boy who was stupid - you would never be able to say something like that in England!

We stopped for some lunch and wandered round the park before the next two presentations. The sanctuary was really natural with muddy paths as if it was really animal habitat. In the middle of the park was a huge lake with lots of turtles in.

The next talk was about koalas but the man admitted he didn't really like koalas or see the point of them! The koalas are a lot smaller here than in Melbourne as they are different types.

After the talk, there was the opportunity to hold a koala and have a photograph. The queue was huge. The koala was really light and had a tight grip. Rach was like a kid at Christmas and didn't want to give the koala back.

The next talk was on wombats and after having our photo taken with the koala, we turned to see a common wombat running towards the pavilion. His name was Tonka and he was a big trouble maker. We immediately fell in love with him. The first thing he did was pass wind which we thought was hilarious and then he kept biting the man who was doing the talk. He loved being cuddled which was not common for wombats. Midway through the talk, Tonka looked like he had fallen asleep but then he got up and started playing again. Another member of staff came down with a baby southern-hairy nosed wombat but this wasn't as playful.

After the talk you could have a photo with Tonka which we did as we got the package where you could get two photos for really good value. While there had been loads of people wanting photos with the koala, there was only us and one other man who wanted a photo but it meant we got to hold Tonka for longer. He was a legend and we were sorry to hand him back.

Our next stop was to visit the dingoes. They were so tame and just like dogs. During the talk it kept licking Rach's leg. We were a bit scared when a kangaroo hopped over because the dingo suddenly seemed angry and wanted to go towards the kangaroo. The tour guide pulled the dingo away which was good because the dingo wouldn't stand a chance with the power of this adult kangaroo.

There were a few more talks that would continue until 5pm when the park closed but we decided to make tracks to find a new campsite. We stopped in a sleepy town called Ayr where nothing was open as it was late on a Sunday. There was lots of 'schoolies' camping here but the lady put us on the other side of the campsite away from them and we didn't hear anything out of them.