With the Easter holiday well and truly over it was time to leave my friends and family behind in the UK and head off to the other side of the world once more.

My role as the Tourism Ambassador meant that I wasn’t going straight to Brisbane and the office, but instead stopping off in the Far East to visit some very important markets in the tourism industry back in Queensland.

First stop, Hong Kong.

It wasn’t my first visit to the island though! I visited here when I was three years old with Mum and Dad on a short stop over. Suffice to say I remember nothing of it but am told that I blew a raspberry at a stallholder in Kowloon market – so must have been getting some practice in for my didgeridoo lessons later in life.

As the plane dropped in through the heavy cloud I got no view at all of the sprawling high rise below which I’d hoped to see. The scary landing which takes incoming through the skyscrapers of the city is gone too, as the out-of-town airport now gives a Hamilton Island-esque landing on a finger-thin runway that juts out into the ocean.

The drive into the city takes you past one of the busiest waterways it the world. The docks which flank the shores are a sign of how successful Hong Kong is as a major shipping port with cranes and containers stacked up like lego bricks as far as the eye can see.

The Marco Polo Hotel is to be my home for the next few nights located in THE shopping district of the city with the likes of Chanel, Louis Vitton and Christian Dior lighting up the evening sky with their extravagant display of opulent electricity usage. I doubt whether Earth Hour was observed here!

Work starts in earnest for me though. Vicki and Tourism Queensland have organised a four day road show in the Harbour City shopping centre with an expansive display highlighting the wonders of the state focusing on the Whitsundays.

The pride of the show is a brand new Mini Cooper that has been completed covered in stickers and branded in the Best Job in the World logos and images taken during my role as the Island Caretaker. It’s awesome but also a little embarrassing!

Our display has a couple of competitions running for the public to enter. One is for budding amateur photographers who can use one of the sponsored Canon cameras to take pictures of their children as they play amongst the huge fish and turtles that the display is made from! The winner, chosen by a group of judges, gets a holiday to Queensland for their efforts.

With the assembled media all massed together it’s time for me to earn my crust with a presentation to them all about the Best Job and Queensland. The stage area forms a magnet for the passing shoppers and by the end there must be a hundred people all watching my slide show!

Afterwards each journalist waits quietly in turn for my to give a five minute interview. There’s a range of journalists here from national newspapers to travel magazines and television, each with a slightly different story to take from the day.

The subject of the environment comes up on a couple of occasions with the issue of the grounding of the Shen Neng 1 being the hot topic.

It was bound to – the Island Caretaker for the Great Barrier Reef goes away for a few weeks and a Chinese tanker crashes into it. The timing couldn’t have been worse. But with my usual diplomacy I steer around these awkward obstructions…I just wish the damn tanker captain had too. Good luck to all of those involved in the rescue operations.

Having so much interest in the story of the Best Job isn’t something I’d expected but it really is front-page news here still. The feeling of celebrity hadn’t crossed my mind until now when I had to start autographing photos! Yikes.

With the National Geographic program about a month away from hitting television screens across the world there’s a few jobs to do with helping to promote the series across Asia.

Star television is the broadcaster here in Hong Kong and one morning I arrive at the studio to record some interviews and promotional material. The series will go to Korea, China, Japan and Taiwan and the relevant lines have to be recorded for each of them. “This is National Geographic, make sure you stay tuned to find out all about the Best Job in the World”!

With two days gone the total number of interviews I’ve given has rocketed to nearly 20 which has to be a record for the world tour so far! Getting this much coverage for Queensland in a massively growing market really will help to bring people out to the Sunshine State…especially when we haven’t seen the sunshine here at all!

Next stop is Beijing…