A woman from Liverpool whose life took an unexpected turn said she would "never ever" have imagined her new life, which she calls "so rewarding".
Rachel Aspinall, 56, lived on Endfield Park, Aigburth until she was 22. Now she lives 10,000 miles away in the hinterland of Australia's Sunshine Coast, near Brisbane, and works a job that is a far-cry from the IT and Teaching degree she studied at the University of Liverpool.
Rachel is a licensed Koala carer and has recently been fighting to establish a new enclosure for the injured and sick animals she looks after. A new jubilee gift from the Australian Government to the Queen, in the form of a donation the charity Rachel works with, will finally allow this to happen.
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Rachel spoke to the ECHO about the project and the life she led until she moved away from our city.
She said: "Originally I came out here on an expedition called Operation Raleigh, where I took a year out of University in '86 to go to Australia. I loved it so much that I went back home, finished university and then applied for immigration and moved out here in 1988.
"I had studied IT and Teaching at the University of Liverpool. When I immigrated on the points system they didn't need teachers at the time.
"But they did need IT people, so I came out here doing computers to begin with. It was very different to what I'm doing now.
"Never, never ever would I have imagined that I'd end up doing what I'm doing. Sometimes I shake my head and think how did I go from living in Liverpool to what I do now.
"In fact, when I grew up I don't think I would've even dreamt of coming to Australia even on a holiday, it was beyond what I would've even thought of at that time so I was lucky to win a place on the expedition which gave me the opportunity to come here.
"When I worked in Sydney there was a girl who worked in our reception area and she was a wildlife carer. So sitting behind our main reception she'd have all these cages of little animals that she used to feed on a regular basis,
"I guess it was maybe 6 years ago when my husband and I were looking for a change of career and decided to open up an accommodation business in the hinterlands of the Sunshine Coast.
"It gave me more hours at home than I'd ever had before and I just remembered this girl. She must've really impacted my memory, as I remembered the animals and I wondered if there's a group locally.
"I've now been caring for wildlife for six years.
"I love it. It's so rewarding. But it can be heartbreaking when they don't make it.
"We never know what animals we might be called in to help, it's not always koalas."
One of the Koala's Rachel has most recently looked after was a female called Ash, who was sick with conjunctivitis and pneumonia, caused by chlamydia, a disease believed to be behind the species being recently added to the endangered animals list. Rachel said it was incredibly difficult to care for Ash as she had to keep her separate from other Koalas at all times, hence why she is pushing to have another enclosure built.
She added: "The Australian government, for the jubilee, donated a gift to the Queen on behalf of the country, but now what they're doing is donating to wildlife, to us, because obviously the Queen doesn't want or need £10,000 dollars".
