Thought this was touching:
THEY say the best partnership in the world is with two opposites, and you couldn't get two people more opposite than Steve and me.
I was and still am a city slicker. Steve was born to the bush, but somehow together, we worked.
I first met Steve in the Eighties and I remember this bloke in the full khakis, with his name embroidered across his shirt. We met a few times after that and then I went up to the zoo and spent a couple of days with him planning for a commercial he was helping me with, and that was probably when things just clicked between us.
In those couple of days I knew that here was a man who was so much bigger than that four-hectare park his mum and dad had built.
It was in the way he spoke about
crocs and snakes, and stuff I've got to admit I had absolutely no interest in. But somehow he pulled you in, pulled you in by his sheer energy and enthusiasm and you just couldn't help but get on the rollercoaster ride. I got on even though everything he loved, I hated. I absolutely hated camping out. There we'd be in these bloody mosquito-infested swamps, and Steve would be jumping around saying 'Isn't this great', and there I'd be Aeroguarded up to the eyeballs. We'd be in exactly the same place, but he'd be in heaven and I'd be in hell.
But you wouldn't swap it for the world and I guess I want to tell the world how great he was. I dont know if I can do it, if I can find the words ... but all those years, all those stories, he never missed a beat. We'd work all night, and then my phone would ring at five oclock in the morning and it would be Steve saying: 'Come on mate, what are we doing, we've got to do this, we've got to do that' and I'd be like: 'Steve, it's five o'clock in the morning and he'd say: 'I know mate, lets go!' And if you went, you'd have the time of your life because even though the work you were doing was serious, there was always time for laughter.
Steve loved a practical joke. He'd try to set me up and I'd set him up.
Once, I got him an absolute beauty. I set up this elaborate hoax where I told him there was this Arabian sheik who wanted to visit the zoo, and who wanted to meet Steve. I said that it was very important it went smoothly because this sheik was a passionate conservationist who might want to donate a great deal of money to conservation in Australia. I hired all these actors to play the roles the sheik, the translator and various hangers-on and Steve agreed to meet him. On the day, you should have seen him. He had no idea how to meet this so-called sheik, so there he was bowing and calling him Your Majesty he was completely like a fish out of water.
Then I had the sheik say he wanted to see the camels. Now the two camels at Australia Zoo were Steve's pride and joy. He loved them, really, really loved them.
So I had the sheik say through the translator that he wanted those camels.
Steve was devastated, completely taken aback and he was trying to say that no, unfortunately the sheik couldn't have them and the translator was saying: 'No, the sheik wants those camels, he must have those camels.'
When we finally let him off the hook and let him in on the joke, Steve never forgave me and he never stopped trying to get me back.
We had so many good times like that, but we had tough times too. I guess what made the rougher times easier was that we had each other.
He watched my back, and I watched his. I don't know which was the tougher job, he could be pretty exhausting. We had to look out for each other in different ways. Sometimes the way he had to look out for me was physical, and he literally saved my life a couple of times.
Once I got into a bit of trouble filming komodo dragons in Indonesia. One of them ran at me, really, really ran at me, and Steve just jumped straight in its path, covering me.
He threw my camera to the ground and this dragon just tore into it. That camera could have been me, and it easily could have been Steve because he threw himself in front of it so it couldn't get to me.
I guess the simplest way to describe how we were was that he looked after me in the bush, and I'd look after him in the city.
In the bush sometimes he'd have to shield me against animals that wanted a piece of me, and in the city I tried to shield him against all the people who wanted a piece of him. He didn't mind, he was proud of what he was doing and he believed 100 per cent in what he was doing, but sometimes it came at a price. I guess it was hardest for him in America, where he literally couldn't leave his hotel room.
The rest of us could go out the crew, the media, whoever was with us but it was just not possible for Steve.
So he'd stay in the hotel room. It was tough on him because he missed his family, just ached for them. He loved Bindi and Bob and Terri like you wouldn't believe, and I don't believe I've ever seen a better father. I'd be on the phone to him talking about these very important deals and he'd say: 'Sorry mate, I've gotta go, its Bob-Bob time.' I don't know how many times I heard him say: 'Gotta go, Bindi needs me, gotta go, its Bob-Bob's bath time', and if those kids needed him right there, right then, well he'd go, right there, right then.
Steve was utterly in love with his children, utterly in awe of his children, and his children are so much their father's son and daughter.
I don't know about Bob, he's too young, but I know without question that Bindi will carry on her dad's legacy not because there's an expectation on her to but because she wants to. Steve will live on through Terri, through his kids and through his work, and even though reality tells us he's not here himself to do it, I still think that in a way he is. Because, and I know this will sound strange to some people, I think he's still with me. Nothing has really changed. I'm still looking out for him and he's still looking out for me. In the past few days when I've struggled, really struggled to find the right words or make the right decisions, I have felt very strongly that he is with me.
When I have sat and cried, I have felt his hand on my shoulder.
He's still beside me, still giving me a kick up the bum when I need it, just like he always did.
For 15 years we pretty much spent every day together and if we weren't together, we were talking on the phone.
Yet in all those years, there was never a cross word between us.
It was the most amazing friendship I will ever have the privilege to know, a friendship based on complete mutual respect and trust.
When you spend so much time with someone you get to know them pretty well and one thing I would like people to know about Steve, that maybe they don't, is that he was a man of intellect.
His image that larrikin, happy-go-lucky, rough-and-tumble bloke we all saw on the television was real, completely fair dinkum, but he was also a deep thinker, a man of great intelligence and a consummate professional.
He taught me a lot but the most important thing he taught me was the power of believing in what you could do.
He gave me the gift of his inner strength and the knowledge that if you believed in what you were doing, you could get through anything.
He made me strong enough to keep doing it now, without him.
In the past few days I've had to do things, say things, plan things I never imagined I would, and bringing my mate home in the helicopter and then the aeroplane was one of them.
People say to me that bringing Steve home to his family must have been the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but it was an absolute privilege.
People say that only I could have made that trip beside him, but that's not true, anyone would have done it in those awful circumstances.
I'm just so honoured that in the rollercoaster we took together over all these years, it was me who rode beside him in the end.
Mates: John Stainton and Steve Irwin at work.
columns
All your Sunday columns:
Frances Whiting
Terry Sweetman
Jim Soorley
God Bless Terri and her family.
