Crikey! What a day
BROOKE Cockburn was inconsolable when Steve Irwin died on her 10th birthday in 2006, but she has been all smiles since meeting the daughter of her Crocodile Hunter idol.
The young Brinsmead wildlife warrior was chosen from more than 1000 children across the nation to interview pint-sized celebrity Bindi Irwin, 9, at her Australia Zoo home at Beerwah last week.
"I was over the moon," Brooke, 11, said of finding out last month that she had won the Australia Zoo Crikey! magazine competition.
"For the first half-hour I was really zonked and couldn’t say a thing, then I didn’t stop talking for the next three days.
"I was asking things like ‘What am I going to wear?’ and ‘Do I need speech lessons?’."
Brooke flew to the Sunshine Coast with her parents Mark and Tracey, older brother Alex, 14, and baby brother Lachlan.
She was then taken by limo from Mooloolaba to Australia Zoo on Thursday for the interview, which will be published in an upcoming Crikey! magazine edition.
She described Bindi, who has just been nominated for her first Logie for her TV show Bindi: The Jungle Girl, as "really nice, just a really lovely person".
"One of my questions was about how she was very famous and what sort of challenges that created, and she said ‘You get used to it’," Brooke said.
"But she said she lives a pretty normal life here; she doesn’t get the paparazzi or anything."
The Year 7 student at Redlynch State College who wants to work at Australia Zoo when she grows up, said she was particularly impressed that Bindi shared her opposition to whaling.
"She said she felt really sad and wants it to stop," Brooke said.
"She told me her little brother (four-year-old Bob) prays every night about it. He says ‘I want the whaling to stop. Amen’."
Bindi showed Brooke through the zoo, including new bronze statues of her famous family.
Brooke also won more than $1000 worth of prizes, including airfares, resort accommodation in Mooloolaba and Bindi merchandise including a camera and watch.