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My maternal granddad, Leonard, was full of amazing stories. He was an orphan, with 11 or 12 brothers and sisters, and he used to tell us about growing up near the Irrawaddy river and how one brother was eaten by a crocodile.

I had the best of both worlds when I was a kid. I'd spend a quiet week with my mum, then I'd go to my dad's property in the Adelaide Hills, where there were all these kids and animals running around.

If I was good each week, my father would take me to a different pet store each Saturday. I had a snake, horny toads, turtles, lizards, rabbits, guinea pigs... I kept my alligator in the bathtub until it got too big.

My mother saved hundreds of animals in her life. Wherever she encountered and injured or needy or abandoned animal, she brought it home.

My Mother was a very wild Australian woman. When we were in Africa she could kill a snake with one blow from a crow bar, which she kept at the back door.

Witnessing the bond between a parent and their little ones firsthand really brought home to me how much I was missing.

When I went to Australia, I went shark diving. It was crazy. It was called 'extreme' shark diving because even though we were in cages, we literally could touch the sharks swimming by. They were huge and I'm terrified of sharks. Then I went to a wildlife park and held kangaroos. That was nice.

The first crocodile I ever caught was at nine years of age, and it was a rescue.

I had a very supportive family environment that gave me room to explore and discover things about myself.

I have two brothers and we basically spent our lives playing in the woods, falling in ponds, getting chased by wasps and riding donkeys that we shouldn't have been riding.