Upon arrival at the centre this morning the first thing we noticed was a big, colourful shade cloth at the top of a long pole, and it wasn't until we were nearly right next to it that we spotted the giant turtle underneath. Her shell must have been around a metre long and she was sitting in a tarpaulin filled with several inches of water, with wet towels draped over her. She was a green turtle, found not too far away, so she certainly managed to get herself quite lost, as the sea isn't that close to where we are.

This morning Chiquita was having a photoshoot with Helen, the girl who is visiting on behalf of the Orangutan Appeal – the UK charity that raises funds for the centre (www.orangutan-appeal.org.uk). Chiquita is one of the orangutans you can adopt – so they needed some new photos for the six month update. Chiquita doesn't seem to be a fan of ranger Victor (or men in general apparently) so as soon as he brought her out she latched on to Steph – who was helping me get the rakes out of the storeroom. Then she latched on to me, and I had to escort her back to her cage. Victor finally got her out again, but getting her to look at the camera was a bit of a struggle.

I led out Peanut today – he is very sweet, and always likes to try and kiss your hands when you're undoing his cage. It was a fairly uneventful morning. When we first reached the feeding platforms there were at least 20 macaques swamping the platforms – so we had to yell and clap our hands to chase them off.

Then Goman decided to head up to the tourist area – so we had to go and fetch him from there. Despite a lot of calling and encouraging he wouldn't come down, that is until April appeared with some bread, then he was down like a shot. We walked him past all of these tourists, who were cooing and fussing over him – that made me realise how lucky I am to have this glimpse behind the scenes.

The afternoon was super quiet, as all the naughty semi-wild ones are currently locked away for check-ups. It is so much easier when they aren't around. Although Rosa did manage to take a nail and unlock the cage housing the fully grown, wild male who was recently rescued and was awaiting release to another area. We could hear him bellowing from the forest. Now the rangers have to wait around until he falls asleep, and when he gets low enough they will need to sedate him and capture him again – it will be quite an operation.

Then after our shift, Melissa and I headed to the Nature Resort for a few cocktails before dinner. We met a couple from the UK who were there with their four year old daughter, Scarlet. She was super sweet and couldn't wait to show us her doll and other toys. Then we got talking to a Scottish man who insisted on buying us a drink when he found out we were volunteering. The cocktails are fairly strong there, so after three we were fairly merry! We also saw a snake swimming in the water