How a Kiwi radio host ended up working as a Club Med DJ and tennis coach

I’d performed the backpacking for a number of months all by means of Southeast Asia with out too many glitches, scars or con-jobs, however the grand plan to comply with that up by settling in with a bunch of go-getting Kiwis already relocated to Canada? For the builders, undertaking managers and finance guys amongst us, all good. For the broadcasters? Well, I managed the “go”, not fairly a lot the “get”.

After months of rejections and brush-offs, I noticed a job advert to be the DJ at a Club Med resort within the Bahamas. This wasn’t fairly what I had in thoughts once I set off abroad, however I craved adventures and tales to inform, and this is able to absolutely supply that. Plus, a childhood in Malaysia had ingrained in me a love of sizzling climate, and the Bahamas sounded much more interesting than winter in Vancouver (why did I transfer to Canada once more?)

Turned out I didn’t have the best visa however wait, would I think about the Whitsundays in Queensland as a substitute? As a New Zealander, there’d be no visa challenge. In a phrase, sure.

Two weeks later I left Canada debt-free – because of successful a giant karaoke competitors in Vancouver, which I think was rigged as a result of the bar proprietor knew my plight. I used to be sure for the tropical heat and sunshine of the Whitsundays, and the southern reaches of the Great Barrier Reef. It can be essentially the most bonkers six months of my life.

Dancing, and extra dancing

I don’t dance. I pester karaoke bars, however dancing? No. Club Med Lindeman Island is obsessive about dancing. There’s dancing when the brand new friends – recent off the boat, generally seasick, all the time sizzling, often determined to get to their air-conditioned rooms – are first detained within the theatre and formally/flamboyantly welcomed to the resort. There’s dancing by the pool. There’s dancing when it rains. There’s dancing within the nightly reveals. And if I’m taking part in the best songs on the proper time, there’s dancing within the “disco” on the high of the hill the place I’m the resident DJ.

It’s right here I study of the curious phenomenon by which roughly 80% of the male human species believes he’s been a DJ sooner or later in his life: “Do you mind if I take over for a bit? I used to be a DJ,” is as widespread a request as precise, nicely, requests. “I’ll see what I can do,” often works as a deterrent.

During the times I spend my time welcoming new arrivals, doing the sound for the Kids Club performances, and rehearsals for no matter that night’s present is. There’s a Michael Jackson present, one known as Around The World, one other that includes musical highlights, and varied comedy skits. And if there’s a whiff of an excuse for the male employees to decorate in girls’s garments, you’ll be able to assure that’ll occur not less than a few nights every week. I’ve shortly ascertained that at Club Med circa 2010, there are few issues funnier than a person dressed as a girl.

Blessedly, my days are additionally spent taking part in tennis with the friends, given the resort’s tennis coach had been let go throughout the still-spluttering Global Financial Crisis that started in 2008. Enter me as much less of a coach and extra of an on-call opponent for the friends. I really like tennis and this shortly morphs from an unspoken a part of my position into one thing bordering on the semi-official.

Beyond the resort’s tennis courts, there’s a circus faculty with a trapeze and about half a dozen – it have to be mentioned – extraordinarily tanned, handsome trapeze artists. There’s additionally a crusing faculty (ditto the employees there), archery, golf, volleyball, two swimming swimming pools, a gymnasium, present store, spa, two eating places, and a completely damaged self-serve Coke machine subsequent to the principle bar with an indication that reads: “The Coke technician is on his way and will be here shortly”.

Having voluntarily given up the gorgeous, historic central Auckland condominium I’d lived in since I used to be 18, to backpack by means of Asia and never make it in North America, I now reside on a distant 6.5sq km island in Queensland in a spot known as “D Block”.

I’m instructed not everybody’s fortunate sufficient to have their very own room, albeit one with a rest room I share with a fellow Kiwi, whom I barely see and whose identify I don’t assume I ever seize. He works within the restaurant and spends his off days making punch in a cleansing bucket that he retains in our hallway.

There are characters for Africa, or not less than your complete continent of Australia. There’s an absurdly charismatic basic supervisor who’s as good-looking as the blokes in Milli Vanilli. He might be a mannequin. Or a non secular guru. Or a supervisor clad in fashionable Thai fisherman’s pants at a drained 3-star resort within the Whitsundays.

There’s a restaurant supervisor who swaggers round like some form of mafioso dude, a center supervisor who’s trigger-happy along with her official warnings for minor offences (“the lectern was in the wrong place – warning!”), and a daydreaming archery teacher who rolls his eyes and audibly sighs every time friends wish to – shock horror – do some archery.

There’s a bogan stockroom man who threatens to beat me up if I don’t play his requests when he’s had a skinful, and considered one of my absolute faves, the middle-aged, golf-buggy-driving porter who can by no means keep in mind which rooms he’s meant to drop the baggage off to.

But extra considerably, there’s a small core of people that grow to be amongst my closest associates. There’s Georgie Love, the receptionist who’s studied journalism, dances in all of the reveals and can someday go on to search out fame as a newsreader, podcaster and star of TV’s The Bachelorette.

There’s Lauren Harder, who works the excursions desk and utters the phrase “welcome to paradise” to each visitor, even when there’s an influence lower, it’s 30C and each swimming pools have been closed because of the recognizing of overseas objects.

There’s Ben, the lighting director who’s oddly unperturbed being saddled with half my job in addition to his personal as a consequence of my lack of ability to plug something in or repair even the smallest technical issues.

And then there’s Glenn Davis, who’s youthful than me in addition to much less jaded, much less burdened by ego and – gloriously for an alleged set designer – doesn’t have an inventive bone in his physique.

He’s immediately my greatest mate on the island and we revel within the each day humour of life right here. Things just like the time our favorite porter dons a wide-brim hat and pretend moustache, pretends to be a visitor, and sneaks into the principle restaurant earlier than getting busted.

In Glenn, I’ve additionally discovered somebody I can confide, “What the hell am I doing here?” Because actually, what am I truly doing right here?

I spend an excessive amount of of my six-month Club Med contract considering how I’ve stuffed up my profession. I generally sense I’ll remorse this: not that I got here to the island, however the all-too frequent inner battles with my very own self-importance. And but I’m residing within the tropics. I’ve snorkelled the Great Barrier Reef, landed in a seaplane on the world-famous Whitehaven Beach, hiked each path on Hamilton Island, and found each secret seaside, bay and bush stroll on Lindeman. And performed all of it with some superior individuals who’ll be lifelong associates.

November marks 15 years since I arrived on Lindeman Island. In January 2012, a yr after I’d performed my DJ set at my last, triumphant disco, Club Med closed its solely Australian resort. To today, all these buildings and services stay deserted.

I returned to New Zealand, bought again into radio and after 25 years within the business, I really feel like I’m in all probability nonetheless attempting to “make it”. But not less than I’ve bought some yarns! And each time I communicate to a talkback caller who’s down on their luck, I can draw on assets of empathy that embody strolling down the road in a overseas metropolis and having no thought tips on how to pay the hire. To that, thanks Simon Dallow.

Tim Roxborogh hosts reveals on Newstalk ZB and Coast and is an everyday Herald contributor.