The last location. Blues Point, in Sydney’s beautiful suburb of McMahon’s point with unbelievable views of the harbour, the bridge and peaking through to the opera house.

Most of the photos I took this afternoon were on my blackberry so my apologies if they aren’t as good a quality as the rest of the trip however you get the idea!

And the last group shot, including our Sydney stylists…

We made our way back over the harbour bridge to Circular Quay to have a bite to eat and a few drinks before we made our seperate ways - each leaving with new experiences, friends and future prospects. It was a pefect end to a phenomenal shoot. All the talent - Dan, Jess, Emily, Andee, Jaynee, George, Katie, Ben, David and Sam - have been so fantastic, never complaining about us getting them up at 4am or making them do repetative tasks to make fools out of themselves on camera, they were all so amazing and blew our minds. Of course the Contiki staff who worked on the shoot were unbelievable too - giving their all and going the extra mile, putting it all into the brand. And then there’s Darth (Mark) our photographer without whom we’d just be a bunch of idiots standing in a desert ;)

This blog isn’t over yet, I still have a few exciting little things I need to put together and upload. But for now, a picture of our glasses all coming together in celebration of a fantastic trip.

The last day. I feel like the trip was so so much longer, but I suppose that’s often the case when you go away.

We rose early, hopefully may last for a while, and adventured just out of the city to Bondi Beach in the eastern suburbs. This iconic beach is synonymous with Sydney and more than worth a visit when you’re in town. We stolled along the promenade to the very end of North Bondi where we met with the staff at Let’s Go Surfing (www.letsgosurfing.com.au) who briefed the team who were anxiously waiting to grab a longboard and hit the waves.

Just signing their lives away…

The instructor took them down to beach (where i annoyingly took photos and filmed them) and they had their land lesson, learning how to paddle out, pop up and ride the wave. Before long they had their land-legs trained and it was time to try it out on the water, and I watched as they dragged their boards into the water.

Now - Jaynee and Andee are so awful at this. They tried paddling out, and after one tumble trying to paddle over a wave they gave up and posed on the beach instead. However Sam and Katie and the boys had an awesome time! Although the water is kinda cold this time of year, I was pretty jealous watching them pop up onto the waves as I sat sweating into the sand like a walrus.

A quick costume change was all we needed before strutting back down along the graffiti-clad promenade towards the skate park.

PROBLEM: none of us skate or have boards, SOLUTION: a kind little boy who leant us his board which was brand new and he hadn’t even used yet! Muaahaha! We got some pretty cool shots in an amazing location. We were up on a hill from the beach with sweeping views out to the ocean, if i were a skater this would totally be where i’d go!

Thank you little boy who leant the skateboard, i am eternally in your debt. After the skate park we drove back to the hotel to chill and have some lunch before the afternoon shoot - our last. Tear. But that is for another post.

So as I may have mentioned before, I live in Darlinghurst in Sydney a hefty (sarcasm) 2-3 min walk from the hotel I was scheduled to stay at with the talent and crew. I proposed I stay at mine, without thinking too much about how disorganised I am in the AM so I was very surprised when I was waiting in their lobby at 5:45 the next morning all psyched and ready to roll. I got a few stares on my way though - kiiiinda look like I had just left a nightclub doing the walk of shame, not that I know what that feels like or anything, um..

I lead our pack on a lovely sunrise walk down Potts Point, through Woolloomooloo up to Mrs Macquarie’s Point to get some amazing shots of the soft early light hitting our stunning models backdropped by the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House. Along with with bustling early morning exercisers who made me feel extremely unfit and ridiculous, there were two other photoshoots going on in the vicinity (some kind of motorcross thing with a bike practically in the harbour, and a Virgin Blue shindig happening somewhere up the hill). We were there first, and we’re cooler, so we obviously had the best spot. Look at some of these shots, it was just so breathtaking, and I look at this harbour everyday from the office!

We cabbed it across to the Opera house - not before Sam was bombarded with Asian tourists wanting to be photographed with here. It was INTENSE!! I took a video i’ll have to upload later on, it was like she was a popstar or something!

After some hot photos set beneath the impressive Opera House, we made our way through the city to get some action shots of the group shopping and at cafe’s etc. It was really fun but REALLY weird to be around so many people having spent the past week in the Outback!

Sam was also photographed by tourists at Martin Place. SO BIZARRE! I think it must be the blonde hair…?

Keen to get out of the city before the peak hour rush, we drove across the harbour bridge to the north side of the harbour and set up down at Bradley’s Head in Mosman. If you don’t know where that is, it was used in Mission Impossible 2 (I think? pretty sure it was the second one, whatever, the one they shot in Sydney). The spot has breathtaking views across the harbour, capturing the bridge and opera house - in our case, silhouetted by the setting sun!

A quick change of clothes, freshen up and some photos of the hive of activity that takes place nighly on the strip in Kings Cross was all we had time for before we called it a night and all went to the Winery in Surry Hills for dinner. It was such a great night, the food and wine/cocktails were all perfect and it was a great atmosphere for us to relax. I really get along with everyone who’s worked on the trip, it’s pretty sad that the next day will be our last of shooting :(

We got up for sunrise - a running theme on any outdoor photoshoot, and took some beachside shots before breakfast.

Everyone’s a bit excited, why? JET SKIING this morning, hellz yeah! I didn’t get to go, so as the talent could have enough time on them to get photos - I still think I was scammed. Looked like so much fun though! The zipped about the clear water with screams of delight as I sat on the grass doing work and pretending not to be jealous, ha.

Next we did something very unique to the Daydream Island Resort - The Living Reef. The situated in the middle of the resort is a lagoon type thing that twists and turns through the buildings, when crossing a bridge, take care to look down - freakin sharks everywhere! Haha! And sting rays! It was UNBELIEVABLE, like a personal aquarium. Much cooler though was that you can organise to feed everything! So we lined up along the side of the shark nursery where they have just put together a breeding program and one by one held a baby shark. Those things are bloody strong! They’re only about the size of my forearm but it was certainly a struggle to keep them still (NB - the type of shark we were holding could survive out of the water for six hours - crazy right - but yeah, we we’re harming anything don’t worry!) Then we moved around and fed some barramundi, and then the stingrays which were insane!!! They would slide up onto the steps in expectance, it was bizzarre and hilarious. Our guide, who’s name was aptly ‘Finn’ guaged our interest in the rays and suggested we went round to the next pool where we could hop in and feed them in the water. This was so cool, they kept trying to go through my legs and kinda creeped me out but they were just so friendly and affectionate it was WEIRD, I totally have trouble wrapping my head around it.

That would be me, in blue, cautiously slipping my hand beneath a ray for it to suck up the fish I was holding!

Sadly it was time to say goodbye and as we sped out across the water towards Hamilton Island to get the flight to Sydney, I watched as the paradise resort got smaller and smaller till it slipped away.

We got back into Sydney around 9pm and after a quick freshen up we ventured out to get a later dinner. I actually live in the same area they are staying, so felt confident in showing them round “my hood”. We had an amazing dinner at Caffe Roma on Kellet St in Kings Cross before trundling off to bed, aware of the jam-packed nature of our stay in Sydney!

I’m sitting on the plane. A plane back to Sydney. This morning the cool water of the Whitsundays lapped at my feet. It’s crazy how fast things happen.

Last I blogged I had just arrived in the Whitsundays, but allow me to go more in depth into our Island experience. We met up with our new faces while in transit in Brisbane, waiting for the flight to Hamilton Island, to get the boat to Daydream Island. Replacing Jess, Emily, Dan and George, we have Samantha, Dave, Ben and Katie. Jaynee, Andee and I all agree, it was kind of weird first meeting the new guys - but it wasn’t long until they were proving themselves as major assets to the group.

Once on the island, the crew and I did a bit of reconesance by golf buggy - AWESOME. We identified two locations we really wanted to get to straight away so rounded up the kids and went out to shoot shoot shoot.

WEATHER: oh my god. We were panicking so so much about the supposed rain that was meant to dominate our time in the Whitsundays, totally not the case. The afternoon we arrived was cloudy but super warm and not rainy at all (except for maybe from our perspiring foreheads - oh yes, the humidity followed us from Kakadu). We got some awesome shots before heading to get some dinner. The ice cold Mojito i ordered rapidly developed some hectic condensation once I stepped from the bar and I could only watch as the catapulted from my hand smashing ALL over the floor sending precious booze everywhere and my parched mouth dry. Round two; make someone carry it for me, excellent. The majority of us ate the catch of the day, Coral Trout. OMG yumtacular. The food on this island was amaaazing, so fresh and so delicious. After a few more drinkies we all gave into exhaustion and hit the hay, eager to see what the weather would be like and if we’d be going sailing in the morning.

Alarm goes off. SUNSHIINEEEEE!!! We couldn’t have asked for a more spectacular day, and skipped down the jetty with glee to our tender boat waiting to take us across to ‘Hammer’ our ex-racing yacht. The boat was massive! While on a Contiki tour, passengers get to go on and stay the night but we had a lot to do so were only daytrippers, but the day itself was just so surreal. After hoisting the sails, we embarked on our journey to Whitehaven beach on Whitsunday Island. We stopped at an island just next to it and had a delicious lunch prepared by the crew of the boat, platters of food to make fresh sandwiches and plate after plate of refreshing watermelon. THIS was the life.

We hopped into the tender and were ferried across to Tongue Bay on Whitsunday Island and hiked up to a lookout where we had the most spectacular view of the beach. Whithaven is the only sand-beach in the Whitsundays, the rest are coral-beaches, which I didn’t know. However they really don’t mess around with this sand! Blindingly white and so fine, it was just incredible. We trekked down to the beach and emerged from the jungle into the vast open white space of the beach. At this time of the year the water is actually teeming with jelly fish which is a bit nasty, so we didn’t swim. Plenty of people don sting suits and hop into the aquamarine waters to splash about though, and just on the down low, I did dip a toe or ten in. We got absolutely stunning photos of the guys workin it on the beach. The white sand, the aqua sea, the blue blue sky and our hot hot models made this place HEAVEN to take photos and we certainly got some keepers, even taking a few silly shots :P

Full from lunch, hot from the sun, tired from the walk and the wine, we re-boarded our yacht and made our way back to Daydream Island. After freshening up we went to Mermaids, one of the restaurants on the island for another scrumptious dinner followed by some tantalising cocktails. I gave myself the night off blogging, and had a couple of the guys back to my room to have some wine, have a gossip and a bit of a boogie to Calvin Harris before kicking them all out and attempting some beauty sleep.