For three days last week, Californian Andrew Smith had fun in the Mountains. It was hard work, he claimed, but as Destination NSW’s “chief funster” it was all part of his day’s work.
Mr Smith’s onerous job for six months is to find 802,000 moments of fun — one for each square kilometre of NSW — to promote the State as a destination, particularly for young tourists.
The 26-year-old digital media professional was selected from 124,000 applicants for the job. His ability to “create a buzz” around himself by tapping into social media and to get not only friends but celebrities to endorse him won him the plum role.
He has to travel around the State promoting events, destinations and tourism experiences. His job, said Destination NSW, is to show “that NSW is the most fun place in the world for youth travellers”.
Certainly the Mountains provided fertile ground for the funster.
Mr Smith ticked off a tour of Jenolan Caves, a viewing of Govetts Leap, canyoning and abseiling around Wentworth Falls, a trip to Scenic world, investigation of the Carrington’s new brewery and a bike ride to Hanging Rock.
At many destinations he played his drums. Hang on, drums?
“Our concept for the Blue Mountains was, hey, you are going to see all these amazing places, how do we showcase this in a special way,” he said. “So I brought my drum kit to show how drastically different it sounds bouncing off different landscapes.”
After his time filming, taking photos, writing articles, blogging and drumming his way around the Mountains, he declared the experience “awesome”.
“It’s so beautiful, so spacious and really serene and lots of parts were just massive,” he said. “It’s just really interesting how you can connect with nature in a way that you can’t at all in the city.”
Details and photos from Andrew Smith’s trip to the Blue Mountains last week can be seen at www.facebook.com/sydneyfunaustralia.
