Hi guys, we're back!

Long time no see! We've just spent three weeks at Kial, which is a wallaby centre for endangered Bridled Nailtail wallaby's. It also has many other interesting animals there too, as you will find out during this blog.

We finally made it to Rockhampton. We stayed in a YHA here which wasn't very nice! We phoned Tina (the lady who runs the project) and arranged to meet her at Rocky zoo where she works the next day.

We got to Rocky zoo met Tina and went grocery shopping to get supplies for the next three weeks. We went back to the zoo and met Pete, Tina's partner. After this we drove the one hour and 20 minute drive to Kial, Marlborough. We were amazed at how far away from everything we were. We didn't even drive on a proper road to get to the property, it was a track! We had no neighbours and clear views in every direction.

We were introduced to the rest of the family, who all seemed nice and friendly and our accommodation. This was a bit of a shock at first as we were sleeping in a shed, but we soon made it home and it was all part of the experience.

Ryan a live-in volunteer, who also works at the zoo with Tina and Pete, showed us the ropes. We had dinner (which was very nice) and then went to bed as we had an early start the next morning!

A Typical Day

Get up between 4:30-5:00am (depending on how hot it is)

Feed Lea and Pricilla at 5:30am

Feed Dusty and Bolts if they come to the kitchen

Feed Rambo and Beans at 6:00am

Have breakfast

Clean pens 1,3,6,7,8, intensive's, outdoors and possum, until about 10:00am

Take Rambo and Beans out onto the grass

Tea break

Feed Rambo and Beans at 11:00am

Lunch

Feed Lea and Pricilla at 1:00pm

General clean

Feed Rambo and Beans at 4:00pm and put them on the grass

Prepare feed out for all pens and possum at 4:30-5:00pm

Feed out at 5:30pm

Feed possum before sun down

Feed Lea and Pricilla at 7:30pm, put Lea to bed

Have dinner

Feed Rambo and Beans at 9:00pm

Bed (yay!)

Animals of Kial

Wiggles the Wombat - A southern hairy-nosed wombat. Tina's baby, she sleeps in the main house with Tina and pete. Wiggles is the pack leader of both animals and humans. She regularly attempts to get into the volunteer shed, by digging under the concrete. She doesn't do much when shes up except eat, eat everyone elses food and scratch! She is a Australian famous wombat who travels around oz to help Tina educate people on wombats and helps to raise money for her close relative the northern hairy-nosed wombat, there is only 115 of these left. Whilst she was there she went to a nursing home and a school. She will also be heading to Brisbane to open an environmental conference. Wiggles was one of Zoe's favourite animals and kind of reminded her of Dionne with her mischief making and cuddles!

Buddy - A common magpie. Don't let Buddy here you call him this though as he will find it extremely offensive! This is Ryan's 'baby' and didn't take long to be Michelle's. Buddy is a territorial bird so was always around. He had been hand raised by Ryan. Buddy liked to think he was a hard man! He liked to help clean the pens or should I say make your work harder as he would take poo out of the bucket or mess up a freshly raked pile. He would very often sit on your shoulder or head and would chat away and even joined me (Michelle) in bed! He also had bad moods and could get quite stroppy sometimes, but he was a great bird and will be flying to England very shortly.

Lea and Pricilla - These were two red kangaroos. They weren't quite old enough or big enough to roam free so they lived in a large pen. They were probably the friendliest kangaroos there. Lea liked to give you a wash when you went in the pen and Pricilla would cuddle your leg. Sometimes cleaning there pen would be quite difficult with Pricilla attached to your leg and Buddy on your head! Pricilla arrived after we did from another carer, she was very nervous and shook when anyone went in the pen. It wasn't long however until she became settled and would stand at the gate watching what was going on and greeting you when you went in the pen. Every night we had to spray both Lea and Pricilla with Swipe-a-fly to stop them getting bitten. We also had to put Lea to bed, which consisted of a bag being hung on a metal rail, she was quite funny to watch as she willingly climbed into her bag. Lea has a growth problem which means she should be double the size she is now but she will keep growing and will one day be released.

Rambo and Beans - These were the two joey's that lived in the hospital. Beans is an Agile wallaby and Rambo was a grey kangaroo. To tell the difference between a female and a male (for you Gill) was that the female (Beans) had a pouch. We had to feed and toilet these four times a day. Beans had a problem with sucking her body parts, as when a joey is in their mothers pouch they constantly suck the teat, so this is a natural instinct, however Beans was making herself very sore and had to have bandages put on her legs and was given a dummy. We had to have her with us constantly for three daysto make sure she didn't suck her tail and to get used to the dummy. As we were leaving the wallaby centre she had improved loads, she had her bandages removed and was sucking her dummy instead of herself. Rambo had problems with his eyes as they were slightly glazed over and his eyelashes had grown inwards. When we were putting them on the grass to get used to being outdoors we noticed that he was very nervous and moved around with his hands outstretched. It was later confirmed that he was blind and would probably live with Tina for the rest of his life.

Bridled Nailtail Wallaby's - These were the wallaby's we came to look after. Tina and Pete have spent a lot of time and money in order to set up the project and to help rehabiliate and grow the population of these wallaby's. These are nocturnal animals and are very shy, but soon came out when it was feeding time! Tina and Pete have got 10 years to try and increase the population before these wallabys can be wild again. We really enjoyed caring for these animals and hope that one day the population will be saved.

Missy, Mini and Cooper - The dogs. Mini would sleep outside the volunteer's shed and would be the first animal you saw when you got up. Cooper always wanted a lot of fuss and attention, he was the baby of the three and Missy didn't like Buddy (aww).

Daisy, Chicco, Kitekat - The cats. Daisy liked to sit in the sink whilst you showered.

Pickles - The possum. We didn't see him very often as he is nocturnal.

Wilson - Wombat number two! We didn't see much of Wilson either as he wasn't hand reared, so he was likely to eat you if you went near him!

Dusty and Bolts - Bolts was a red kangaroo and Dusty was a wallaroo. Dusty would often come and find us when we were preparing feed out. They were good friends.

Clypto - A black cockatoo. She would greet you when you went to her cage and was a fan of pegs and sunglasses.

William, Calvin and Curtis - William is a type of cuckoo, Calvin is a common cohell (not sure how to spell that!) and Curtis is a tawny frogmouth. William was very noisy as he was always hungry and would make an even stranger noise when he was being fed, he flapped his wings a lot too. Curtis has a spinal problem and moves his head around in strange ways.

Spot, Bonny and Clyde - Snakes. These lived in the house so we didn't see these very often, but we did see Spot's skin as he was shedding and the dead mice he was fed!

Lizards - One of these unfortunately died, but Zoe did have an encounter with the blue-tongue lizard as it squared up to her when she went to see it!

Outdoor kangaroos - these were all released but were regularly seen hopping around and were fed by us.

The bugs! - There were bugs every where of course, some big ones, some small ones, some collected for dinner and some that liked to feast on Zoes legs! You do get used to the bugs in the end!

Overall, the project was an amzing experience. Most people come to Australia to see the animals in a zoo whereas we had a more hands on experience and felt very priviledged to be working with them so closely everyday. We had a great time and have been told we are welcome to go back anytime which we would love to do. We would recommend this to anyone who is not afraid of getting their hands dirty and is willing to help save an endangered species.