The hours in the day seem to run out quicker than ever these days….by the time I’ve finished the days activities, blogged about it and then sorted through the photos and video there’s nothing to do but go to bed.

Something had to suffer and it’s turning out to be this website…much to my own disgust as its you guys I should be keeping up to date with everything that goes on behind the scenes of what I still consider to be the best job in the world!

The last post here was way back (or does it just seem like it was way back as so much has happened) when we headed north to Cairns, well since then we’ve done a southerly loop down to Gladstone and out to the islands of Heron and Wilson. You can read all about that on the islandreefjob.com website instead of me rattling on about it here.

The photos of Heron Island are here

The photos of Wilson Island are here

We got back into Brisbane on Friday and spent the day with TQ at the offices catching up on some of the things which have been going on since I was there last and also for a new concept the one hour long Twitter Q&A session where people could send direct messages relating to the Islands and I’d guarantee I had good reception to be able to answer them, unlike on some of the islands. This was all good in theory but what we didn’t bank on was a hacker breaking into both Twitter and Facebook that night rendering them both useless! What it did mean was a quiet night on the tweet front…..

Spent the Saturday shopping in Brisbane and it’s a pretty easy place to navigate yourself around, the river acts as a great reference point but the only thing is I haven’t yet found the smaller independent shops on my walkabout, you know the quirky little places and one-offs. Yes the main street has everything in it but sometimes I just want to loose myself in a myriad of junk and weird stuff! Did manage to pick up a few books though – a couple to help with the blog and one by the man who ran 50 marathons in 50 days, Dean Karnazes. Should be a good source of motivation when I get my current read out of the way….at the end of the year!

And my thoughts are turning to the end of the year already, I have to otherwise I’ll get there and be left with a huge vacuum and nothing to do…almost like arriving back from Afritrex in January.

I want to do something that involves travel, endurance and raising money for charity…as with Afritrex.

From chatting with people along the way a few things spring to mind:

• Mountain bike along the Bicentennial Trail which runs from Cooktown to Healesville, a total distance of 5300kms
• Row the length of the Great Barrier Reef, something like 2000kms in a kayak or Woodvale style boat (my friend Tom is leaving in November to row the Atlantic – best of luck mate! Have a look at http://www.atlanticrowyt.co.uk)
• Run across the Simpson Desert?!
• Balloon across Australia with the help of Sir Richard Branson and Virgin
• Climb the 10 peaks in the Kimberley’s in a 10 day period. That’s one a day (not sure about the logistics of this really)

AND ANY OTHER IDEAS WOULD BE WELCOMED…REALISTIC OF COURSE!

It’s particularly difficult to try and stay fit whilst doing this job you know, constant good food and a lack of routine have meant that my fitness is restricted to the few days I have at home on Hamilton Island…so I’ve been out for the last couple of days, busting the tracks around the island. I even put together a little video for you!

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The pace of life at the moment is totally fantastic and everyday brings new and exciting things to do, one huge fear however is that by the time I blink it’ll all be over and the contract will have drawn to a close. Every so often I have to pinch myself and take a step back to check it’s all happening for real.

Spent the last few days filming with the Getaway travel show which goes out nationally throughout Australia and hit the airwaves on Thursday 13th August – a great idea to compare the host, Natalie’s job and mine. Best Job v’s best job. I win of course!

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Headed out to gain my first sailing qualification on the ocean around the Whitsundays aboard the yacht ‘Another Fiasco’ with the help of Explore Whitsundays and had an amazing time with Matt the skipper and my crew of Nick, Anthony and Ian – it holds me in good stead for the upcoming Hamilton Island Race Week which takes place at the end of August and if the rumour is true I’ll be sailing on board ‘Wild Oats‘ – an incredible Maxi yacht which has won the Sydney – Hobart and is owned by Bob Oatley, the owner of Hamilton Island. Hold your breath Ben – this one’s going to be mental!

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We spent a few days on Hayman (yes the place whose name I spelt wrongly in my first week on the job and got crucified by the press!) relaxing in the sunshine, snorkeling, bush walking to try and find wallabies and enjoying the opulent hospitality there.

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Today and tomorrow are days off, well as close as I can get – only a huge website update for both here and islandreefjob.com, a couple of phone interviews and an 800 word piece for The Observer newspaper by Friday night. Headed to Airlie Beach on the mainland for another dentist appointment and I hope they’ve sorted it this time for good….

Over the weekend I head south on the Queenslander train service to Gladstone before relocating on Heron and Wilson Islands for some real bush camping in tents…..5 * tents of course – you can’t expect me to back to normal ones just yet can you!?!

The weather’s been blustery and warm, the tan is starting to feel right again after a few pasty months in the UK and the ocean is becoming more like a playground as I try loads of new things – jetskiing, sailing, diving at night, snorkeling in rip currents in front of the house etc!

I’ve picked up the pace of life and feel it all fits rather well – I could do this for a long time you know!

Only 5 months left and counting. Time to start looking at the next project and getting things under way for my circumnavigation of Australia departing in the early part of 2010. Any ideas of good endurance challenges people??

Sorry for the delay in getting anything new onto the site, I have set myself the task of writing some new script for you tomorrow morning, in the mean time have a look at our first scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef when we descended to 10 metres to dive with some Potato Cod and Reef Sharks.

The first few weeks of the job have been excellent, really good fun, packed full of new challenges but pretty damn busy. Now that’s a good thing as anyone who knows me will realise…I don’t really like sitting still or wasting time – unlike the English cricket team in the first Ashes test!

As I sit here tonight on the sofa at home (watching the Ashes funnily enough) I’ve been thinking back about the days since I started the job in July 1st and will try and summarise the highs and lows of what’s been going on in my crazy world ever since.

Best beach: Whitehaven Beach – crystal clear water, THE finest white sands and its 7kms long.

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Best food: The accolade for this category must be split between two very different locations. I love my steak I really do, a fat rib-eye fillet, cooked rare makes me smile from ear to ear and that was my first night back in Australia at Jo-Jo’s in Brisbane. Presentation is SO much  as far as I’m concerned when it comes to good food and Glenn Bacon at Hayman really does make you feel at though you’re eating a work of art. Bre and I sat at his bench in the kitchen and were served an incredible range of delights….Squid Ink Emulsion, Ice Bowls, Foie Gras Jus – a tantilising menu of note.

Best bed: The Pavilion at Lizard Island resort for sure! From the goose down pillows to the mind blowing view there is only one real contender so far. I could have spent two weeks here and have never got bored…the review that Kate Hudson gave exactly the same room when she stayed there was “the most romantic place in the world” – and I can agree. There’s this incredible bed, the huge sliding windows which open out onto the veranda, the infinity plunge pool overlooking the ocean and Osprey Island and finally the double day bed a few feet down to watch the sunrise from. Yes you pay through the nose for somewhere like this but the experience is one I’ll never forget. Check out these photos…

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Its amazing how much today I take mobile phone reception for granted and when I loose it all normal functions, updates and blogging just disappear off the radar. It’s actually quite refreshing, life can continue without being tied to the keyboard and it gave me a chance to enjoy Lizard Island to the full. The downside though is this site has neither changed nor evolved in the last week and for this I can only apologise….so here I go!

After a few days on Hamilton Island and in the surrounding Whitsundays, Bre and I headed to Cairns and the north of Queensland. Its the furthest north we’ve both been so far on the trip and the change in temperature was really obvious as we left the plane and suddenly felt a rush of warm air as we left the plane, finally Bre may be warm enough in the evenings to not need to wrap up as though she’s at home in Canada!

I’d really looked forward to heading out to Lizard Island as so many people had recommended it, this is one of the Voyager resorts and by all accounts probably one of the most luxurious destinations we’ll visit during the next six months…plenty of real celebrities come here to get away from everything….people, internet, mobile phones – everything!

The flight we took on Hinterland Aviation over the outer ribbons of the Great Barrier Reef was awe-inspiring, we swept low over the coral cays with the deep aqua blues and sandy bottom really standing out, some of the little sandbanks are only exposed at low tide and you can really imagine parking off on one for lunch and a snooze, maybe sometime I’ll be able to do it but not this time. We made the final approach to Lizard and touched down on the runway, full of anticipation for the coming few days adventure….

Bliss, perfection and total utter spoiling…just some of the words which can only start to summarise what awaits you if you ever make it out to Lizard Island. This is one of those retreats that the rich and famous make it out to, its remote, there’s only ever 40 guests on the island at any one time and you feel like someone really special as the staff treat you with a very personalised touch, add to that the fact that it’s one of the most picturesque tropical islands I’ve been lucky enough to make it to and you’ll see why I’m pouring so much praise onto it.

There’s a wealth of things to do here, it not just the ‘sit on the beach and fry’ sort of retreat as there’s activities galore to experience; diving, snorkeling, sailing, dinghies for hire, bush walking etc. During our few days on Lizard we had a good go at most of them. The Cod Hole is a famous dive site on the GBR, famed for its huge Potato Cod which are so tame they actually accept food from the dive master and brush right past you in the process. As they power away from any threat the shockwave their acceleration creates can easily be felt through the water, my first ever experience of this which gives you an idea of their strength….don’t get in the way! I loved the dive here, the second of the day, which had given the tide a chance to drop offering some protection from the swell and surge of the outer ocean and allowing the clarity of the water to increase giving us amazing visibility of around 20 metres. We swam with Black Tip Reef Sharks, Trumpet Fish, Barracuda and Mackerel. The variety of corals here both soft and hard are very impressive – there’s other areas where I’ve snorkelled which maybe don’t quite come up to scratch with what I’d expected from the GBR but the Cod Hole truly delivers. Here’s a selection of images to try to highlight this, apologies for the lack of colour in these images – I only received the camera just before heading underwater and hadn’t changed any of the settings to suit the marine environment. Will do better in the future….

This post was written nearly a week ago and I’ve just found it in my drafts….sorry for the delay in getting anything up here for you to read. There is very little I can do when the islands I visit have no phone reception or internet connections. Typing the next post right now.

This is just amazing, the experiences that Bre and I have had over the last two days really would have normally filled a month of my life or even a year and I feel extremely honored to be in this position and can’t wait for the next few days, weeks and months.

Since leaving the city of Brisbane and finally arriving at my island paradise last Wednesday afternoon the dream just hasn’t stopped happening. Bre and I made our way into the Blue Pearl, our house for the next six months, and slowly unpacked trying in some way to fill the gaping spaces with some of our own clothes and things from home to add a little more of a lived-in feel to the villa.

The view from the balcony is the most amazing feature of the house with far reaching views out over the Coral Sea and to the east where the sun rises out of the ocean every morning, this will be the perfect place to use a telescope which is now number one on my list of things to buy!

Since then we’ve headed to the marina via the golf buggy to catch the Voyager launch out to Whitehaven beach which is one of the most beautiful beaches imaginable; crystal clear blue water, white silica sand and a perfect blue skies can make you definitely understand why this has been voted Queensland number one beach location. Nah Judd from Queensland Parks and Wildlife gave the two of us a very informative briefing all about the sand, the beach and even let us into a little secret about some of its incredible properties…you can use this stuff to clean silver jewellery  as its very fine and therefore slightly abrasive.

As Bre and I were mucking around and splashing in the water one of the film crews asked her if she’d do a couple of cartwheels and flips for them, now Bre being the girl she is couldn’t say no. We ran towards the camera together with Bre twirling away beside me and just as she landed the final turn, came down hard on her heels with the angle of the beach turning her off balance. The end result was a hobble, a look of embarrassment and a need to sit down and assess the damage. Yikes that wasn’t supposed to happen.

The sound of the seaplane overhead signaled our departure but my poor girl was in pain so I carried her to the plane ‘fireman style’ and placed her delicately into her seat – the first time we’d flown in a small plane together.

Our flight to Hayman was over far too quickly, we’d passed over some stunning locations and I almost felt a little jealous of the yachts and launches moored below in the blue waters and I imagined the owners and crews leisurely swimming and snorkelling…oh Ben your time will come! This is going to be a really busy, hectic schedule but one to savour and enjoy…

Its been a total whirlwind since arriving here on Hamilton Island and when I get a chance I’ll finally write some script for here, in the meantime here’s another short video! {seesmic_video:{“url_thumbnail”:{“value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/BKcG5YiGFO_th1.jpg”}”title”:{“value”:”When I get a second I promise I’ll write more!!! ”}”videoUri”:{“value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/Qtnpgn3Ctq”}}}

{seesmic_video:{“url_thumbnail”:{“value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/agQgMUdk12_th1.jpg”}”title”:{“value”:”LEAVING FOR THE ISLAND ”}”videoUri”:{“value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/0W2NXAgiWn”}}}

{seesmic_video:{“url_thumbnail”:{“value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/p4hdZYCgQh_th1.jpg”}”title”:{“value”:”Arrival in Brisbane ”}”videoUri”:{“value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/UJhT3dy8ok”}}}

Its sort of two-fold this post…

1. The Best Job in the World campaign has be beaten by none less than Barrack Obama’s presidential campaign in the race for the Titanium Lion at the Cannes Advertising Festival. Oh well, probably a little more budget there I imagine. Read more here

2. The British and Irish Lions were beaten 28 -25 by the South Africans in what will go down as a simply spectacular game of rugby. With one game to play in the three game series the Saffers have already secured a series win leading 2 – 0. Oh how that hurts…to find out the painful truth read more here

It’s not always good to be the Lion you know

Found this through a friend on Twitter and had to put it up here:

Via: Term Life Insurance

Sunrise along the river by bensouthall at Garmin Connect – Details.