I’d done the backpacking for several months all through Southeast Asia without too many glitches, scars or con-jobs, but the grand plan to follow that up by settling in with a bunch of go-getting Kiwis already relocated to Canada? For the builders, project managers and finance guys among us, all good. For the broadcasters? Well, I managed the “go”, not quite so much the “get”.
After months of rejections and brush-offs, I saw a job ad to be the DJ at a Club Med resort in the Bahamas. This wasn’t quite what I had in mind when I set off overseas, but I craved adventures and stories to tell, and this would surely offer that. Plus, a childhood in Malaysia had ingrained in me a love of hot weather, and the Bahamas sounded a lot more appealing than winter in Vancouver (why did I move to Canada again?)
Turned out I didn’t have the right visa but wait, would I consider the Whitsundays in Queensland instead? As a New Zealander, there’d be no visa issue. In a word, yes.
Two weeks later I left Canada debt-free – thanks to winning a big karaoke competition in Vancouver, which I suspect was rigged because the bar owner knew my plight. I was bound for the tropical warmth and sunshine of the Whitsundays, and the southern reaches of the Great Barrier Reef. It would be the most bonkers six months of my life.
Dancing, and more dancing
I don’t dance. I pester karaoke bars, but dancing? No. Club Med Lindeman Island is obsessed with dancing. There’s dancing when the new guests – fresh off the boat, sometimes seasick, always hot, usually desperate to get to their air-conditioned rooms – are first detained in the theatre and formally/flamboyantly welcomed to the resort. There’s dancing by the pool. There’s dancing when it rains. There’s dancing in the nightly shows. And if I’m playing the right songs at the right time, there’s dancing in the “disco” at the top of the hill where I’m the resident DJ.
Tim Roxborogh (back row in the centre) with Club Med staff on Lindeman Island in 2010.
It’s here I learn of the curious phenomenon in which approximately 80% of the male human species believes he’s been a DJ at some point in his life: “Do you mind if I take over for a bit? I used to be a DJ,” is as common a request as actual, well, requests. “I’ll see what I can do,” usually works as a deterrent.
During the days I spend my time welcoming new arrivals, doing the sound for the Kids Club performances, and rehearsals for whatever that evening’s show is. There’s a Michael Jackson show, one called Around The World, another featuring musical highlights, and various comedy skits. And if there’s a whiff of an excuse for the male staff to dress in women’s clothes, you can guarantee that’ll happen at least a couple of nights a week. I’ve quickly ascertained that at Club Med circa 2010, there are few things funnier than a man dressed as a lady.
Tim Roxborogh hosting poolside tomfoolery at Club Med Lindeman Island in the Whitsundays in 2010.
Blessedly, my days are also spent playing tennis with the guests, given the resort’s tennis coach had been let go during the still-spluttering Global Financial Crisis that began in 2008. Enter me as less of a coach and more of an on-call opponent for the guests. I love tennis and this quickly morphs from an unstated part of my role into something bordering on the semi-official.
Beyond the resort’s tennis courts, there’s a circus school with a trapeze and about half a dozen – it must be said – extremely tanned, good-looking trapeze artists. There’s also a sailing school (ditto the staff there), archery, golf, volleyball, two swimming pools, a gymnasium, gift shop, spa, two restaurants, and a permanently broken self-serve Coke machine next to the main bar with a sign that reads: “The Coke technician is on his way and will be here shortly”.
Having voluntarily given up the beautiful, historic central Auckland apartment I’d lived in since I was 18, to backpack through Asia and not make it in North America, I now reside on a remote 6.5sq km island in Queensland in a place called “D Block”.
I’m told not everyone’s lucky enough to have their own room, albeit one with a bathroom I share with a fellow Kiwi, whom I barely see and whose name I don’t think I ever grab. He works in the restaurant and spends his off days making punch in a cleaning bucket that he keeps in our hallway.
There are characters for Africa, or at least the entire continent of Australia. There’s an absurdly charismatic general manager who’s as handsome as the guys in Milli Vanilli. He could be a model. Or a spiritual guru. Or a manager clad in trendy Thai fisherman’s pants at a tired 3-star resort in the Whitsundays.
There’s a restaurant manager who swaggers around like some kind of mafioso dude, a middle manager who’s trigger-happy with her official warnings for minor offences (“the lectern was in the wrong place – warning!”), and a daydreaming archery instructor who rolls his eyes and audibly sighs whenever guests want to – shock horror – do some archery.
There’s a bogan stockroom guy who threatens to beat me up if I don’t play his requests when he’s had a skinful, and one of my absolute faves, the middle-aged, golf-buggy-driving porter who can never remember which rooms he’s meant to drop the bags off to.
But more significantly, there’s a small core of people who become among my closest friends. There’s Georgie Love, the receptionist who’s studied journalism, dances in all the shows and will one day go on to find fame as a newsreader, podcaster and star of TV’s The Bachelorette.
Georgie Love with Club Med Lindeman Island in the background in 2010.
There’s Lauren Harder, who works the excursions desk and utters the phrase “welcome to paradise” to every guest, even when there’s a power cut, it’s 30C and both pools have been closed due to the spotting of foreign objects.
There’s Ben, the lighting director who’s oddly unperturbed being saddled with half my job as well as his own due to my inability to plug anything in or fix even the smallest technical problems.
And then there’s Glenn Davis, who’s younger than me as well as less jaded, less burdened by ego and – gloriously for an alleged set designer – doesn’t have an artistic bone in his body.
Tim Roxborogh (right) with Glenn Davis while they were working at Club Med Lindeman Island.
He’s instantly my best mate on the island and we revel in the daily humour of life here. Things like the time our favourite porter dons a wide-brim hat and fake moustache, pretends to be a guest, and sneaks into the main restaurant before getting busted.
In Glenn, I’ve also found someone I can confide, “What the hell am I doing here?” Because really, what am I actually doing here?
Tim Roxborogh fondly remembers working with Glenn Davis and Lauren Harder (both pictured) at Club Med Lindeman Island in 2010.
I spend too much of my six-month Club Med contract thinking how I’ve stuffed up my career. I sometimes sense I’ll regret this: not that I came to the island, but the all-too frequent internal battles with my own self-importance. And yet I’m living in the tropics. I’ve snorkelled the Great Barrier Reef, landed in a seaplane at the world-famous Whitehaven Beach, hiked every trail on Hamilton Island, and discovered every secret beach, bay and bush walk on Lindeman. And done it all with some awesome people who’ll be lifelong friends.
Great Barrier Reef from the air.
November marks 15 years since I arrived on Lindeman Island. In January 2012, a year after I’d done my DJ set at my final, triumphant disco, Club Med closed its only Australian resort. To this day, all those buildings and facilities remain abandoned.
Club Med Lindeman Island, in the Whitsundays, closed in January 2012.
I returned to New Zealand, got back into radio and after 25 years in the industry, I feel like I’m probably still trying to “make it”. But at least I’ve got some yarns! And every time I speak to a talkback caller who’s down on their luck, I can draw on resources of empathy that include walking down the street in a foreign city and having no idea how to pay the rent. To that, thank you Simon Dallow.
Tim Roxborogh hosts shows on Newstalk ZB and Coast and is a regular Herald contributor.