Location: Airlie Beach for some fun! Weather: Spring is in full effect…sunshine and blue skies, hot. 28°c

‘Frocktails’ Fashion Show – Friday night. Unsurprisingly I’ve never been asked to be a model at a fashion show before…with my super skinny legs (designed for speed and not looks!) and not-exactly model looks, I’ve been to watch a couple but never strutted my stuff on the catwalk. Tonight was to be very different as Bre and I had been asked to open the event taking place in the luxurious surroundings of Waters Edge apartments  where we were lucky enough to be staying and representing one of the fashion shops in the town, Airlie Beachworx who’d been kind enough to kit us out with some new threads ready for our modelling debuts.

With around 300 people in attendance the nerves were jangling a bit as we took our first steps down the red carpet, especially as at the last minute I’d been ushered into the make-up and hair chair to be worked on…..have a look at the photos and tell me what you think!

Sand Sculpting competition – Saturday morning

When I spotted this little challenge on the itinerary I shouted to Bre “we need to make a sand castle – what on earth shall we do?” Suffice to say we spent the next hour searching Google images for some inspiration and decided to try and construct a ‘Saltie’ or Saltwater crocodile….armed with a couple of printouts we descended on Airlie’s sandy beach front at 9am on Saturday morning armed with the desire to win! On arrival it seemed we’d got it a little wrong from the start….everyone had started bang on time and all we had was a pile of sand in front of us.

Around turtles, crabs and mermaids were already starting to take shape constructed by kids and parents all armed with buckets, sprayers, shovels and trowels – these people meant business and all we had were our bare hands! With three hours to prepare something we set about the task and formed the outline of our creation, built a huge pile and made the legs and tail but the problem came when we started to ‘finish’ the sand…hands do very little, sticks are just as bad and we struggled on until eventually our next-door neighbour leant us some equipment so we could finish the job off properly…now that’s a friendly proposition!

Once the time was up we felt we’d done ok….here’s some pics of the attempt. Sunday was the announcement and…by jove we won the adult section of the competition giving us a free dinner for two at Airlie’s top sushi restaurant. Perfect as it’s Bre’s favourite food!

Reef Festival Street Parade – Saturday afternoon

Fresh from the sand sculpting competition we brushed ourselves down, grabbed a change of clothes and made for the assembly area at the yacht club end of Airlie Beach where the trailers and floats were starting to mass ready to commence the culmination of the weekend’s activities….the carnival parade! Now as we’re filming a documentary for National Geographic throughout the Best Job experience the Producer and Cameraman James occasionally wants to throw something unusual into the mix to create a slightly more interesting program…today was to be no different.

I would be driving a golf buggy during the parade – not to represent Hamilton Island where buggies are the usual means of transport, but instead for Big 4 Adventure Whitsunday Resort where I’d been lucky enough to stay a few weeks earlier and who were sponsoring the event. This however is no ordinary golf buggy…this one has a massive frog head on the roof which is the logo for Big 4…then add to that the inclusion of a fancy-dress costume and I’d be passing through the streets of Airlie dressed as King Neptune with Bre as his mermaid. Enjoy laughing at the pictures of what was a brilliantly fun afternoon:

End of day location: Waters Edge resort, Airlie Beach

Distance travelled: 80 kms by helicopter, 250m on the catwalk and 3 kms by golf buggy! Very different!