When the offer of a free ticket comes your way you don’t refuse it do you!?
And when it’s a ticket to a top football match (or soccer as it’s called out here in Australia as there are so many other version of the sport it’s unbelieveable!) you grab it with both hands.
Tonight’s game at Suncorp Stadium was between Australia (or more affectionatly called the ‘Socceroos’) and Indonesia. A bit of a pre-World Cup knock around but well worth a visit all the same.
Kerri from Tourism Queensland managed to get a couple of tickets from Brett Towers, manager of TTF Australia, a company dealing with Transport and Tourism in the country. We made our way through the massed ranks of 20,000 Aussie supporters, all decked out in their yellow merchandising, to our box high above the pitch.
What a superb view it was too, looking right down on the superbly green pitch below we watched as the tension built prior to the teams arrival, the crowd cheering, mexican-waving and flag waving!
The game wasn’t actully that much to write home about with both teams struggling to find any form or momentum, Indonesia struggling the most with numerous dives and pretend injuries. Football/socer is probably THE most frustrating game when it comes to this! Why do players have to feign injury so much!
The final score ended 1-0 to Australia which was really a well deserved victory. They did put the pressure on throughout the entire game. My prediction may have been a little ambitious at 3-1!
It was definitely enough to light to fire inside of me to watch some more live sport as soon as I can though! Watch this space
I’ve been back from my trip to the USA for a few days now, the coverage the Best Job campaign still receives is excellent news with the media interest focusing on:
“So now that it’s all over – how was it? No really how was it?!”
“Tell me how do you follow the Best Job – surely nothing comes close?!”
They’re all the standard questions but everyone wants to know the answer of course and I honestly tell them it could never be matched, well maybe the next eighteen months won’t quite match it but if the first one is anything to go by then it’ll come pretty damn close!
The P.R. value achieved through the TV and radio appearances go a huge way to reminding the public about Queensland and the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef but the other side of the tour is the presentations I’ve been making to the travel industry in each of the locations I’ve visited.
These are targeted at the most important part of that industry, the travel agents. For it’s them that help convert a customer’s mere thought into a booking, which is what we’re all aiming for.
————————————————————————————————————
I’ve set myself another goal for 2010 and that’s to get properly fit again. If there’s one thing that the last six months have done for me (apart from the obvious good stuff) it’s drop my fitness back down to a level I haven’t seen for five years.
Completing my Afritrex expedition around Africa involved running five marathons and to do that I needed to be fit….really fit and the pinnacle of this challenge was the Comrades Ultra marathon in South Africa. 56 miles or 89 kms of running hell…
Comrades Route Map
…so I thought I’d set myself the daunting task of doing it again this year.
Why you’re probably wondering? I’m not 100% sure really; I love the idea of trying to mentally battle through the 10 hours of hell that the race is, taking it through the pain barrier and pushing myself to my limits once more.
The race takes place on May 30th between Pietermaritzburg and Durban in South Africa and I’ll be taking some time off work to attend two weddings and to run the race.
But in order to up my fitness level to anything barely resembling that which I’ll need, I’ve been hitting the streets of my new home city, Brisbane. There’s a huge network of tracks, cycle paths and boardwalks covering the city and the sights and sounds of an urban environment are actually very interesting to run in – coming from the countryside of Hampshire I thought I’d never say that!
Brisbane's boardwalk
I’m also trying to find somewhere to live in this great city, getting to know and recognise new places and suburbs is tough when you don’t have a car so combining my training and a reconnaissance mission were the order of the day on Saturday as I took to the streets to investigate further:
To prepare for the Comrades I have to find at least one half and one full marathon between now and the day of the race in May. I’ve already decided to head back to my old stomping ground on Hamilton Island at the beginning of May to run the descriptively named ‘Hamilton Island Hilly Half Marathon’ which should be a stern test.
Hilly Half route
Half marathons are never easy but this one goes up and down the many steep sections of the island and heads off road for a good part too. I’ve trained on these hills and love them…but they hurt.
Why not enter yourself? Combine a week away in paradise with a testing, gruelling run – further details for the event can be found here:
Hilly Half details
To download the PDF of the event please click here
With only 4 months to go I’m trying to find another full length marathon in Queensland which I can enter – does anyone know of one?!
Back soon with some outtakes from my original Best Job application last year…
I headed out of the Queensland summer on the 12th January aboard V Australia’s a flight from Brisbane to Los Angeles to start the first leg of my new role as the Global Ambassador representing the state of Queensland and the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef.
During the trip I’ll be making presentations to the travel industry and hopefully lots of excited customers all keen to find out more about the islands and the experiences I’ve had over the last few months. G’Day USA is an annual event introducing to Americans the experiences and everything that’s possible in Australia through trade and business. Tourism, being Queensland’s second biggest employer, is high on the agenda so together with Anna Bligh the Premier, we’ve been embarking on a media tour to tell New York, Los Angeles and beyond all about why Queensland is so good and discussing the options that are available for those people wishing to holiday in the state.
There are links below to the two appearances we’ve made on the Today Show and Fox & Friends, two of America’s biggest morning programmes.
I’ve since flown back to L.A. and over the weekend made a number of speeches to the public and representatives from the travel industry here, all about Queensland and the experiences I’ve had over the last few months as the Island Caretaker.
Having taken so many photos during that time it’s easy to choose the ones I need in order to make a good, light hearted presentation, and the reception I received was pretty good! Having a substantial prize to give away always helps to fill a room (not just the fact that I’m talking!) and Qantas had been kind enough to donate two return flights to Cairns as part of it along with two nights accommodation at Thala Beach Lodge, and a packed house awaited me in the theatre. The huge backdrop of the Great Barrier reef really enticed people to come and find out more about it and the children loved the touch pool with real life star fish in it!
Saturday night was The Gala Black Tie Dinner taking place at the Hollywood & Highland Grand Ballroom in Los Angeles, a celebration of all things Australian and what a fantastic night it was! With 900 people attending the room was filled with an electric atmosphere and kicked off with a presentation by the Qantas Children’s Choir with their rendition of “I still call Australia Home” – very uplifting and truly angelic voices all round.
The evening recognised and rewarded some of Australia’s best known Ambassadors who now live and work in the USA, Greg Norman was the first to be recognised and the speech presenting his award was made by none other than John Travolta! Wow I’m in the presence of greatness here!
As dinner was served the feeling across the room was one of expectation and excitement, what a start to the evening! The next award of the evening was to Simon Baker the actor who’s starred in movies such as The Devil wears Prada and the more recent CBS series The Mentalist, and the role-out of stars continued with Aussie legend Nicole Kidman giving the speech. Then when it couldn’t get any better she and her husband Keith Urban sang a ode to Simon himself….here it is below:
The final award of the night went to the actress Toni Collette whose movies include In Her Shoes and Little Miss Sunshine and the very amusing Cameron Diaz strutted on stage to make a very amusing speech and presentation. Things got even better for Toni last night as she collected a Golden Globe as the Best Actress in a Television Series for her role in United States of Tara. It appears the Aussies are taking the USA by storm right now!
After the awards had been made it was time to dive into the desserts and also time to take our chance socialising with the stars. Shana (Tourism Queensland’s US Director), Wendy (Tourism Queensland’s stand-in CEO) and I headed into the crowds to go and meet the celebs!
It may appear a huge amount of fun, and it was, but at the same time the event raises Australia’s profile in the US and opens lots of doors for trade and tourism alike. Please can I go back next year!?!
Not much time left this year to teach you how to speak in an Australian tongue, so here goes with a few more Aussisms:
Youse – pronounced yewz or yooce – ‘What are youse trying to say’. Commonly used to imply the plural of ‘you’.
Bonzer/Bonza – An adjective expressing great enthusiasm or approval: ‘a bonzer bloke’. It is not widely used nowadays, other than in books, or films depicting the stereotypical Aussie
Larrikin – a wild, unruly or undisciplined person
Our morning had been energetic to say the least; first stop had been the beach at Mooloolaba to meet Robbie Sherwell for a sunrise surfing lesson on the long sandy beach. Having lived in South Africa for a few years I’d surfed before but Bre had never tried it out and we both raced into the foamy shorebreak with our fat foam boards to try and conquer the waves!
Bre has prefect balance having been a gymnast for much of her early life and mastered standing up straight away, the two of us played around in the water for ages riding to the beach then turning and paddling back out for another go. Robbie was excellent and helped us to get out back every time the waves became too much for our tired, unfit shoulders. I can’t wait to get back into the wet stuff once more after Best Job has finished…
As one well known surfing brand states “only a surfer knows the feeling”…
Another slightly higher profile lesson awaited me once I’d hung up my boardshorts back at the Hyatt resort in Coolum – a quick golf lesson with PGA professional Adam Scott the recent winner of the Australian Open!
During our stay at the Hyatt, a major golf tournament was being hosted, the last round of the Australian PGA competition and consequently the resort was alive with golfing pro’s and enthusiasts. I made my way down to the practice range and felt the lump in my throat get bigger – I was going to have to play alongside the big guns here and I don’t think my two comedy games on Hamilton Island golf course would hold me in good stead! The pressure of having about five cameras pointed at me wouldn’t do too much to improve my game either!
Adam showed me exactly what to do and over the course of the lesson I learnt how to hold myself and the club throughout the stroke and genuinely improved what was a very questionable swing into…a slightly better one. I won’t be winning this competition anytime soon but at least I might not find the rough every time – thank you Adam!
It’s not necessarily one of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef as Moreton is just off Brisbane and therefore too far south, but it’s truly fantastic place to visit where you can take part in one of the many activities which are on offer. Tangalooma resort on the island is also home to the famous wild dolphin feeding program so it was somewhere we couldn’t resist the thought of visiting!
The wind was howling as we arrived at the departure point in Brisbane ready to board the fast catamaran across to Moreton Island and Tangalooma resort, as we left the confines of the river and entered the open ocean the swell picked up and the boat rolled around accordingly – there were a few green faces as we arrived at the jetty around an hour later.
Henk the resort manager was there to meet us, a friendly guy who has made Tangalooma his home for the past few years and really does live the place. As we walked along the arrivals jetty people were already starting to gather for the daily dolphin feeding show so we raced to our rooms, dropped our bags off and headed down to the beach. Tonight I was to become an honorary Marine Biologist!
Aleisha Constein has been working here for three years and helps members of the public down the sand to the waters edge where every night between seven and eleven dolphins arrive to take fish from their hands! It’s an awesome sight I can tell you as five lines of people queue up ready for some interaction with these incredible creatures. Each night the dolphins come to the beach for around an hour and each night return to the same line to feed. There is enough food to go around but never so much that the dolphins don’t retain their natural feeding requirements – in fact only 10% of their daily diet comes from these sessions.
Echo is a 17 year old male who arrived to the beach as an orphan and has been a regular feeder here for a couple of years, he’s easy to identify as there’s a little bit mark out of his tail from a shark attack a few years ago – amazing!
Feeding dolphins is a very belittling experience – being able to get so close to such graceful creatures fills me with wonderment and after spending the night so close felt blown away by the interaction. What a great way to introduce children to them!
There’s no point on sitting around soaking up the sun and doing nothing when you’re staying somewhere with as much on offer as Tangalooma has, so after a quick breakfast Henk piles us all into the resort’s Land Cruiser and drives us up the deep sand roads to a famous site on the island. The Desert.
The place is a vast wilderness, Moreton island is all sand and most of it appears to be here in the form of massive sand dunes and the prevailing winds have moulded and shaped them into huge steep-sided slopes perfect for a bit of fun. We grab our waxed pieces of wood and make for the top of the super heated sand arriving at the top five minutes later after a lot of huffing and puffing.
The next step is to try and get comfortable on the tiny scrap of wood lying belly-down before sliding all the way down to the bottom of the dune at speeds of up to 40 km/h. The secret with this is to keep your mouth and eyes shut!
It’s a brilliant way to waste some energy and time, sweating it out poldding up the dunes and then racing back down again and good practice for the next activity on the agenda – ATV racing!
We’ve done a little of this before whilst being here in Australia but nothing could prepare us for quite how good the course here on Moreton Island is! We had a quick safety briefing and headed out of the resort in convoy not knowing what to expect, as we left the tarmac and hit the soft sand it dawned on me that this is the perfect location for racing about. The track is well away from the resort with little sound pollution and no environmental damage to the surface either as it’s only sand!
For the next hour Bre and I tear about racing around after our instructor as we explore the island; head along the beach, burn down the slopes and figure out the gear systems on these wickedly good fun machines. By the time we get to the end of the course we’ve been covered in dust (again) and feel tired and dirty. What a day of fun…
Tangalooma offers so much in the way of fun and activities for all ages, the range of foods and restaurants on the island mean you’re never far from the next meal and we loved it. Considering the island is only an hour away from Queensland’s capital the air is fresh, the water clear and you can forget the pressure of city life during a short weekend away.
As Bre and I head off on our penultimate adventure in Queensland during my time as Island Caretaker, our first little appointment is back in Brisbane at the Iceworks Bar & Restaurant – it’s Christmas party time and and of course there’s a theme to try and stick to – Tropical North Queensland. Lucky we’ve spent a few weeks there and have the ideal props.
It was a perfect night to socialise and chat with some of the amazing people I’ve been working with over the last few months and to say some thank you’s too…
The adventure starts here…its been a long time coming and the last six weeks have been a real taster of what the next six months hold in terms of media coverage and press attention.
What they haven’t given me though is an understanding of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef and the experiences they hold for me. The anticipation and excitement are building and tomorrow I finally head out to my new residence at the Blue Pearl on Hamilton Island to commence my role as the Island Caretaker.
