One of my invitations for Christmas was to join some friends going off to Australia. Being divorced makes this difficult, not only financially, but because I couldn’t justify taking my children away from their father for three weeks over Christmas.
My friends spent about 5 days on Hamilton Island, meeting up with Ben Southall, the man who beat 34,000 applicants to secure the position of “Best Job In The World” for a BBQ one evening. I’ve been following my friend’s blog and have seen her pictures of them all together. I have also seen the pictures of the suits you now have to wear whilst swimming to avoid getting stung by jelly fish. It makes them all look like Tellytubbies:-
However, they are clearly essential because poor old Ben was stung during his last week in the job – whilst not wearing his suit.
The culprit was the peanut-sized Irukandji jellyfish, whose venomous sting can be lethal.
In his blog, which he keeps as part of his job, he describes the incident as “a little sting on the beach”.
But it was his progressive symptoms of fever, headache, lower back pain, chest tightness and high blood pressure that led doctors to diagnose the sting.
“I thought I’d done particularly well at avoiding any contact with any of the dangerous critters that consider this part of the world their home,” Mr Southall writes in the latest update to his online diary.
December 31st, 2009 at 12:40 am
ummm. l would rather swim in a pool…I have an aversion to the sea, as l’m a scaredy cat fo sea critters and such lke, so give me the pool any day…having to loo like a tellytubby to enjoy the sea NOT against the skin….l think l’d prefer cambden palais anysday…would love some sun though….greta to read a ‘different’ post for the season, quite refreshing lu.
December 31st, 2009 at 9:19 am
Ugly! such a beautiful place and such hideous suits. I have to say they are also reminiscent of the people dressed as sperm in the Woody Allen movie “Everything you wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-RKFewOetc -about 1min 55 into the clip!
December 31st, 2009 at 2:12 pm
l thought that too Eclipse….a film l remember well, love that bit with burt reynolds and woody being the sperm that didnt want to end up on the ceiling or worse!! LOL