“ I was born in Lismore but my parents lived on farms all around the area. I went to a lot of different schools as Mum and Dad moved a lot. When I left school I went nursing which was the last job on earth I thought I would do because I was a very shy, nervous person. I never really went out due to always working on the farm milking cows and all those farm jobs.
We lived in Coraki at that time and I was in a fashion parade for the Presbyterian church. The secretary at the hospital asked my neighbour if I had a job which I didn’t so he asked if I would go down to the hospital. There was no way mum and dad would let me say no. I was really scared. I had the flu and had to ride my bike to the interview and he told me to come back when the matron was there for a proper interview. Her name was Matron Whitlock but they used to call her Matron Flintlock (firearm) because she was a bit feisty. I was terrified when I went to see her. I can still see her walking up the corridor. She used to be in the Airforce and she had that airforcey walk, a veil which they used to wear back then and eyes that went straight through you. She said, Can I help you? I said ‘I’m waiting to see Matron Flintlock please.’ I still got the job. I nursed at Coraki then went to Brisbane to nurse at The Holy Spirit Hospital.
I got really sick for a few years and left nursing. I started working at Wallace Bishops in Brisbane and working in Jewellery shops became my main job for the rest of my life. I worked in Pinkertons Hourglass Jewellers here in Lismore for 23 years and I worked at Diamonds Plus for 13 months. I also worked on and off for about 4 years at the Jewell Centre.
I go to The Conway St vets and years ago there was a notice up on a board wanting volunteers at The Koala Sanctuary in Lismore. I didn’t know we had a koala care centre. It took me another 2 years as I was working full time and my husband was really sick. I left the jewellery store in 2003 and I bumped into a friend who said they needed someone at the koala care centre to jazz it up a bit and about a month or 2 later she asked me to be a treatment person so that’s when I started working with the koalas.
We look after sick and injured wild koalas and we have a lot of orphans as well. The babies are usually orphaned because of trauma or their mothers are too sick to look after them, mostly car hits, dog attacks and cow attacks. You would be surprised how many are attacked by cows. We’ve progressed here a lot more since back then. I sort of got thrown in the deep end in those days as I knew nothing about koalas. I’ve been here since 2004 so 14 years. They are such wonderful creatures to look after. Nowadays I’m here pretty much 7 days a week. I used to be the Care Centre Co-ordinator back in the day and now I’m the Volunteer Co-ordinator so I do interviews, run the roster and make sure everyone’s happy. It’s a 7 day a week job.
It’s a beautiful spot here with the lake and the creek. We get a lot of birds and wood ducks, pelicans, etc. Volunteers come from all over the world, Japan, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, all over. We do work for the dole as well. Some stay on as they love it so much. We run koala tours at 10am and 2pm Monday to Friday and Saturday at 10am where we have a power point presentation to educate people on what koalas have to put up with and the work we do here then we take people down to the runs to see the koalas.
We always need volunteers. We have about a hundred people come in every week but not everyone can come in every day. Right now we have about 13 koalas in our care, a couple who have gone to the vets. We had up to 18 in the last few weeks. I like to have 8 volunteers on every afternoon. Some of our volunteers will come for a month every day. They get to go to the vet, to rescues and releasing. They love it and they learn so much. We had a young girl here from Germany who worked intensively for a month. While she was here her friends back in Germany raised $1000 for her to donate to us.
The koalas are used to people but the idea is we try not to humanise them, especially the ones who have to go back out in the bush. We handle them but only to do their medications or take them to the vet. We have a mother here with a little fella just out of the pouch. There are some feisty ones but once they get to know you they are gorgeous. It’s a real joy when we can get them back out where they originally came from into the wild again. They get excited because they know they can go up a tree.
A few years ago we had 4 permanent koalas here and 3 who had raised babies and another one who was sick. We lost one a month for 3 months. They had all been her for about 4 years and everyday for a week we had people sobbing their hearts out. We raise a lot of orphan babies who go to home carers till kindergarten here. They get weaned off their human mothers and then they go to what we call soft release where they are in a fenced area with a tree in it so they learn how to climb a tree and get their own leaf. After that they graduate. It’s all done as gently as possible.
If you see a koala on the side of the road please check to see if it is dead and also check if it has a pouch. If there is a baby inside do not try and remove it from the teat because you can easily fracture their little faces. Call the Friends of Koala hotline and we will either get you to bring the mother in here or to the vet. We have great vets here in Lismore who are really good to us. We go to Currumbin Wildlife Hospital as well. We have 2 tiny babies coming in today.
I always tell people we haven’t got time to get bored or old when we work here.”