Anyway, back to the Sanctuary. Lone Pine, the world's first and largest koala park, was opened in 1927 with just 2 koalas. It now has some 130, ranging from newborns to the old grannies – koalas generally live until they're 11 but some here were up to 15 or 16. The oldest koala (according to the Guinness Book of Records) is from here and lived to the ripe old age of 23. She was called Sarah.

I was totally besotted with koalas – they were so cute and cuddly, exactly like real-life teddy bears. As a result, I insisted that we stop and stare at each and every enclosure, numbering about 12 in all. Some of the koalas were active, munching on eucalyptus leaves or climbing around, but the majority were asleep – like the bamboo-eating pandas we saw in Chengdu, a diet of glorified lettuce leaves gives the koala very little energy, which results in a lot of sitting and staring. This is why diets are bad for you.

I was so excited that James paid for me to cuddle a koala – a little boy called Wiley, about 2 years of age. He definitely cuddled me back, and though he was a little smelly, he was very cute indeed. My maternal instincts seemed to have been transferred to the koalas for the morning, as I wandered around goggly-eyed and grinning like an idiot.

Whilst koalas are the park's raison d'etre, it is also home to many other animals, including platypus, dingos, wombats and a wide variety of birds. We went to the snake house, filled with poisonous snakes which I couldn't even bring myself to look at, so deep-seated is my snake phobia. But then, considering we're in the country that's home to the 10 most venomous snake species on earth, I think most reasonable people would be fairly terrified too.

The park's other specialty appeared to be kangaroos, and we spent a lot of time in the kangaroo enclosure. A well as the kangaroos and wallabies, this park was also filled with a whole host of humans, who had bought roo feed and were intent on hand-feeding the marsupials, whether they liked it or not. In some cases, one rather bored-looking animal was surrounded by 3 or 4 humans, cupped hands outstretched, their relatives ready with the camera to take the perfect shot. The animals were incredibly tame, and I'm sure the majority were happy to be fed, although a couple hopped off to escape the pestering. It was amazing to see the famous hop in action. I followed a roo around with my camera, taking a few steps towards it at a time, in order to 'encourage' it to hop away. I did catch myself wondering actually whether this b ordered on animal cruelty, but I got a pretty good video out of it.