Bindi Irwin has been dating her American wakeboarder boyfriend, Chandler Powell, for 18 months now and fans of the pair have been wondering exactly how they met.

Chandler’s grandfather has spilled the beans of their first encounter to Woman’s Day magazine saying his grandson was “obsessed” with the Irwin family from way back. In fact Steve Irwin was on of his idols and Chandler totally fell for the young Bindi upon visiting Australia Zoo with his parent back in 2014.

The grandfather, John DiCenzo, 73 went on to say- “When the two of them met he was obviously awfully impressed,” he said, “enough that he wrote a letter to the zoo and said ‘would it be all right if I wrote to her?’ They both really bonded because they both travel so much, and they talked about how to combine the travelling with school, something they’re both very used to. Bindi likes writing letters just like Chandler — I guess that’s old-fashioned with email and things these days. I think they talk every day they can. They use Skype, too.”

Chandler has a great love for animals and conservation just like Bindi, 17 and used to watch Steve Irwin all the time on TV as a kid.  “It’s why people who know him — know his love of animals — just had their minds blown when they saw photos of him with Bindi when they got together,” his grandfather added.

The young couple are currently trying to make their long distance relationship work as Chandler is currently studying at the University of Central Florida and Bindi splits her time between the US and Australia. We’re pretty sure Chandler won’t have any objections to moving to Australia Zoo though!

Photos courtesy of Google images.