Four years ago, Ben Southall was chosen by Tourism Queensland from more than 34,000 entrants to hold the ‘best job in the world’ – six months as Caretaker of the Islands in the Great Barrier Reef, with a salary of €116,000 and a luxury villa. From his home in Brisbane, the intrepid Brit tells Patrick Cooke about his experience and why he will always be an adventurer.
What was your life like before you entered the ‘best job in the world’ competition?
I was only in the water for two or three seconds but the damn thing stung me on the arm. He must have thought I had been having too much fun!
I had my best year ever in 2008. I had saved up and planned for three years to drive around the rim of Africa on my own in a Land Rover for charity.
It took me a whole year to do it. During that time I ran five marathons and climbed five mountains, raising £50,000 for charity. I ran a website all about my endeavours and adventures that grew from about 50 people following it in the beginning to about 5,000 by the end.
I got back to the UK on January 1, 2009, and on January 10 the advert went live for the best job in the world competition.
Why did you decide to enter?
With iconic images of a desert island and the offer of a lovely pay packet, people might have thought all the winner would have to do is lie in a hammock for six months.
When you looked at it deeper, they were actually looking for someone who could go off on an adventure, exploring the islands of Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef.
They wanted someone who could write about it, and do everything they put on the table, from skydiving, to diving, to sumptuous six-course dinners... all the things you could do as a tourist in Queensland.
My travel experience the year before, when I was running my own website, uploading videos and using social media, was a good grounding to take me through to the ‘best job in the world’. I thought it would be a bit like my previous year, but with a nice big house and a lovely pay packet.
Did you expect to win?
You never do, because we are all self-doubters. I took notice of the other entrants and the videos they had put together. Some had spent lots of time, money and effort on video production.
I used a small camera held at arm’s length and very basic editing software in those days, and I threw together my summary of why I thought I would be good for the job and what I had done in the previous year in Africa.
I had some pretty cool stuff to put in the video as I had gone ostrich-riding, I had been diving with great white sharks, I had climbed mountains and run marathons. It was enough to catch the eyes of the people judging because it got me through to the final 50.
To be in the final 50 out of 34,680 people, that’s when you start to think you have a chance. But in the initial stages I didn’t think I had a hope in hell.
Did the job meet your expectations? Was it ‘the best job in the world’?
For me it certainly did. I’m a slightly hyperactive person who needs to be out channelling my energy.
But I think a lot of people who had seen the original advert would have imagined themselves sitting on a beach writing a blog once a week. Those people would have thought it was far too busy. But it wasn’t supposed to be the best holiday in the world; it was the best job in the world. A job fulfils you and satisfies your employer.
It was for sure the busiest job in the world. I worked 12 to 15 hours a day for pretty much six months.
What did a typical day in the job involve?
I would get up at 6am and go for a run. I would then have all these incredible experiences, some better than others. I would be sailing, diving, bush walking... all these different things that tourists could do on these different islands.
Every night I would sit down with the tourist board or island manager or resort manager or TV crew and that would be the evening’s entertainment. They would go home around 9pm and I would then sit at the computer and blog about the entire day and edit photos, put videos together.
My typical day would usually finish at around 11.30pm or midnight; then I would be up at 6am to do it all again. Six months of that does tire you out pretty quickly, but that was why I took the job, so I could channel my energy.
Tell us about your brush with a deadly jellyfish...
I had three days left on my six-month contract and I had done everything right up to that point. There are these tiny jellyfish called Irukandji that are very venomous and almost impossible to see.
I was out on a jet ski and no one puts a stinger suit on while they are on a jet ski. I was only in the water for two or three seconds but the damn thing stung me on the arm. He must have thought I had been having too much fun! Luckily I was alright in the end.
Have you always loved to travel and explore?
As a child, my family would drive the car up to the west coast of Scotland for a two-week adventure. We didn’t really go abroad, so I guess I was always trapped a little.
I finished university at 21 and had the opportunity to work in Cape Town for the round-the-world yacht race. That was my first opportunity to live in a country completely different from the UK. After the job finished, I travelled up the South African coast and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Later, two events happened that made me realise life is there for the taking. You are only on earth for a short time and you must take these opportunities.
A friend of mine who was travelling had a diving accident in 2001 and he never made it home. And I lost a friend in the Asian tsunami in 2004.
They were key points in my life when I realised that I had to follow all the little dreams I had because it could all be over very quickly.
At that point I had lived in South Africa every summer for six years. I enjoyed the overland travel in South Africa so much that I decided I wanted to make some kind of income from the expeditions I was doing.
Now I’m luckily working pretty much as a travel journalist. That adventurous attitude has always been there; it just hasn’t always been able to blossom. The more you do things, the more people get to know about them and the more people are inspired by them.
Is this the most settled period of your life?
I got married to Sophie in November, and we just came back from an adventure honeymoon in Laos a few days ago. It is the most settled I have been in my life. A few days ago we picked up our nine-week-old-pug!
Saying that, the adventures keep coming. Sophie and I are looking to live in Asia in 18 months to two years. It is the most up-and-coming continent in the world, and we have to explore it.
In the meantime, there are still plenty of adventures in the pipeline. I’ve got my next expedition in just under two months’ time, when I will be trying to set a world record, climbing the highest mountain in each Australian state in just 10 days.
I like to have at least one adventure per year from now until... who knows when. That’s the plan.
Win a dream gap year with Havana
Ben is on the judging panel of the Havana Club Gap Year competition. Starting in the Cuban capital Havana, the winner will visit 12 countries in 12 months, immersing themselves in local cultures along the way.
Ben said: “Any chance to get outside your own country and explore the world opens up your mind. This is an opportunity to discover unique aspects of life in different countries. The winner must be open-minded and ready to embrace new people and ideas.”
If that sounds like you, you can enter the competition by logging on to the Maltese Havana Club Rum Facebook page (www.facebook.com/HavanaClubRum.mt).
Participants must upload a short video explaining what three things they would leave at home during the gap year and what three things they would pack in their bag if they won.
Videos will be uploaded to the local Facebook page and voted for by the public. The five videos with the highest number of votes at the end of the entry phase will be interviewed by Havana Club representatives.
Each country will then send a local winner on an all-expenses-paid trip to Havana for five days.
In Havana, the Maltese participant will join all the winners from countries around the world to take part in the global finale.
The videos from all the winners will be voted on by a panel of judges and the overall winner of the Havana Club Gap Year will be selected, based on the video produced.