I'm A Celeb host Dec Donnelly enjoys a lunch date with wife Ali Astall as he touches down in Australia ahead of new series

Declan Donnelly enjoyed a romantic date with his wife Ali Astall after touching down in Australia over the weekend. 

The star is preparing to front I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! alongside best pal Ant McPartlin, with whom he has hosted the show since its 2002 inauguration yet enjoyed some downtime with his wife before next week's launch. 

Opting for a funky shirt and shorts combo, Dec, 51, could not stop smiling as he stepped out with his stunning wife who wore a stylish mini. 

Ali, 47, who married the TV star in 2015, showed off her legs in the shirt dress which featured a ra-ra hem and a button down collarless top. 

She draped a denim jacket over her arm and paired the look with studded sandals after touching down to support her husband, with whom she shares eight-year-old daughter Isla and four-year-old son Jack. 

The showbiz world has been alight with rumours of this year's contestants, with Wayne Rooney and Sharky seen touching down on Monday.  

The new series comes weeks after the duo were criticised by PETA over I'm A Celeb's 'relentless reign of animal exploitation' and 'tacky and cruel spectacle'.

The show's notorious Bushtucker trials, which see celebrities locked in with live animals and forced to eat creatures such as spiders, mealworms and cockroaches, have sparked fierce controversy over the years.

PETA have long campaigned against the show, saying that 'animal abuse is not entertainment'.

Last month, the animal rights group created Ant and Dec costumes that turn the I'm a Celeb presenters into perpetrators at a grisly crime scene.

The costumes call out the duo's long-running cruelty towards frogs, crocodiles, spiders, rats, insects, and other animals who have been killed, eaten, and subjected to stressful stunts for the show's eating trials.

The costume, retailing at £95, is now available to order on the PETA website. All proceeds will benefit PETA's work to end animal exploitation.

But behind the Halloween spoof is a history of real-life horrors, PETA claims.

The ITV show has confined frogs and other animals in inescapable chambers with screaming, flailing contestants during the trials, and served animals' genitals, organs, and other body parts as food.

The programme's abuse of animals has prompted thousands of complaints to Ofcom, and PETA has called on Ant and Dec to step down from the show.

'Unlike the celebrities who volunteer to enter the jungle, animals never sign up to be confined, terrified, or killed for a cheap laugh,' says PETA Vice President of Programmes Elisa Allen.

'PETA's Halloween costumes put Ant and Dec's complicity in the spotlight and call on ITV to cut cruelty from the script and get the animals out of there.'

In 2009, ITV faced prosecution in Australia after contestant Gino D'Acampo killed a rat and cooked the animal for a meal during filming.

The following year, the programme pleaded guilty to two charges of cruelty to animals and paid a fine.

And in 2018, footage from the programme showed a crocodile used in a Bushtucker Trial with the animal's mouth taped shut.