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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Jonesy and Demanda podcast. What do

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Speaker 1: Charles Darwin, Steve Irwin and my beloved ninety two year

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Speaker 1: old father Arthur Keller have in common turtlenecks. You're not

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Speaker 1: quite wrong. That's good English about turtles or tortoises. They

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Speaker 1: all are connected in some way to Harriet, the legendary

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Speaker 1: tortoise that lived at Australia Zoo until it was one

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Speaker 1: hundred and seventy six years old. It didn't start its

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Speaker 1: life Australia Zoo. It was owned by Charles Darwin before

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Speaker 1: it was owned by Steve Irwin. That's right. Yeah, this

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Speaker 1: is a galapagus tortoise. It is they live. That's one

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Speaker 1: of the longest lived ones ever. There is a one

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Speaker 1: that there is one in Madagascar that lived to one

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Speaker 1: hundred and eighty eight years. Is that the same as

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Speaker 1: human years? Is that human years or no, it's the

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Speaker 1: same thing. It's not like dogs. It's a year is

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Speaker 1: a year, So one hundred and seventy six years. So

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Speaker 1: when someone gives you that for Christmas, it's not just

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Speaker 1: for Christmas, it's for eighteen million narrations. Think about that.

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Speaker 1: Put in the whill so this one hundred Harriet, one

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Speaker 1: hundred and seventy six year old Galapicus tortoise was believed

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Speaker 1: to be one of three tortoises collected. And I'll tell

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Speaker 1: you in a minute how my father is connected. He

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Speaker 1: was collected by Charles Darwin during his eighteen thirty five

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Speaker 1: expedition on the HMS Beagle. They didn't pick up my

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Speaker 1: father at the same time. But Harriet lived in extraordinary life,

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Speaker 1: spending time in Britain before coming to Australia in the

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundredths where she was initially misidentified as a male

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Speaker 1: and was called to Harry. Harriet spent her final years

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Speaker 1: at Australia's So this is she lived this incredible life.

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Speaker 1: So she would have been doing her own business in

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Speaker 1: Galapicus Islands. Charles Darwin was sailing around HMS Beagle. It

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Speaker 1: was what an interesting specimen. Let me take I'll take

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Speaker 1: that which and he lived with Charles. She lived with

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Speaker 1: Charles Darwen for some time and then like twenty years

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Speaker 1: before she passed away, she ended up in Australia Zoo.

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Speaker 1: She spent her final years there. Steve Irwin considered her

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Speaker 1: part of the family. She passed away in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and six due to heart failure, marking the end of

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Speaker 1: an incredible life that spanned almost two centuries. That's the

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Speaker 1: same year Steve passed away. Well, what's really interesting, and

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Speaker 1: this is where my father comes in. My family went

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Speaker 1: to Australia Zoo that year, not long before Steve passed away.

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Speaker 1: Steve wasn't there at the time, but Terry was. We

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Speaker 1: met Ted, We hung out with Terry, We hung out

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Speaker 1: with Robert, who was the same age as my youngest son,

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Speaker 1: who's now twenty two. And we hung out with Bindy.

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Speaker 1: So our family, Liam and Jack, my sons, Harley, and

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Speaker 1: I hung out with them at Australia Zoo. And we

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Speaker 1: met Harriet at Galapagus Tortoise, as did my father. Dad

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Speaker 1: was with us too, so Dad was particularly enamored of Harriet.

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Speaker 1: Loves a wrinkle about the same age. That's right. I

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Speaker 1: remember him feeding Harriet a hibiscus flower and then very

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Speaker 1: very shortly after she died. Right. So are you saying

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying my father killed Harriet. Well, this is

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Speaker 1: a thing. I have looked this up over the years

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Speaker 1: and occasionally they do. It wasn't a poison or anything

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Speaker 1: like that. The timing was she had heart failure and

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Speaker 1: you know, well she lived one hundred and seventy six years.

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Speaker 1: She looked her dad and thought, okay, I'm out. So interesting.

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Speaker 1: That's how my father is linked to Charles Darwin and

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Speaker 1: Steve Irwin. But this is another interesting thing about this

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Speaker 1: is that Terry Owen has written about this in her

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Speaker 1: book that John Edward the psychic went to Australia zoo

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Speaker 1: and spoke to Harriet. Apparently he wasn't aware that he

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Speaker 1: could communicate with living animals, and he went to the

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Speaker 1: zoo and Harriet communicated with him. And here's some things.

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Speaker 1: This is what Terry Ewen I said. And she's not

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Speaker 1: a woo woo person. As you know, Edwards is a

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Speaker 1: friend of hers. But she's not woo. She said. Although John,

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Speaker 1: I think what you said, it's like woo, not woo.

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Speaker 1: Just the sad people think that. Yeah. No, I don't

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Speaker 1: think she's very fairy. No she's not, she said. John

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Speaker 1: hadn't been to the zoo before, but Harriet the tortoise

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Speaker 1: told him that she used to be in another enclosure,

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Speaker 1: which she liked, but she liked this new one better.

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Speaker 1: And that made sense because apparently her new enclosure was bigger.

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Speaker 1: Harriet had said she liked the one of the keepers

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Speaker 1: who had an accent, but it wasn't Australian or American.

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Speaker 1: John couldn't pick it. Then he met Jan who was English.

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Speaker 1: She said, that's the accent. John said that Harriet had

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Speaker 1: said she'd had blood drawn from her tail, which they said, yes,

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Speaker 1: that's correct, we did a DNA profile on her. But

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Speaker 1: what about this? They thought John didn't get this bit right.

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Speaker 1: John said, Harriet misses her blanket, and Terry said, you know, John,

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Speaker 1: Harriet can't have a blanket because she tries to eat everything,

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Speaker 1: just as to the high biscuits. She misses her blanket,

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Speaker 1: John insisted. After he left the zoo, I asked Steve

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Speaker 1: about it. Did Harriet have a blanket? Nah mate? Steve

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Speaker 1: said she'd have eaten it. Weeks went by and I

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Speaker 1: visited Steve's dad, Bob, and told him about John Edwards

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Speaker 1: right up to the blanket, and he said he was

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Speaker 1: spot on until he got to the blanket. Oh, and

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Speaker 1: said he was spot on until he got to the blanket.

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Speaker 1: Bob's face, this is the dad. Steve's dad widened with

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Speaker 1: a big grin actually, back in the eighties, he said,

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Speaker 1: a woman knitted a blanket for Harriet. On cold nights

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Speaker 1: before we had given Harriet a heat lamp. We'd put

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Speaker 1: the blanket over her shell, hoping it would help her

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Speaker 1: contain some of her heat during the night. But Bob said,

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Speaker 1: Harriet had that blanket for weeks and weeks until one

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Speaker 1: day she tried to eat it and we had to

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Speaker 1: take it away. So she'd had a blanket, and that

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Speaker 1: all said, John's talking out of his wa zoo, because

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Speaker 1: why would we give her one? And she had had

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Speaker 1: a blanket, extraordinary, extraord We've gone from woo woo to wazoo.

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Speaker 1: I know it's all there at the Zoo Astralia Zoo.

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Speaker 1: I'd be happy. So in two thousand and six, just

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Speaker 1: before Steve died, Harriet the tortoise died and my father

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Speaker 1: was responsible. Maybe in there