A Skydiving, mountain-climbing interpreter from Taiwan has scored herself a shot at what's been dubbed the "Best Job in the World" - getting paid to serve as the caretaker of a tropical Australian paradise island.

Officials with the tourism department of Australia's Queensland state said yesterday that Clare Wang won a spot among 11 finalists vying for the job - a A$150,000 (US$105,000) contract to relax on Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef for six months while writing a blog to promote the area.

Wang was selected by the public as the "wild card" winner from a pool of 50 short-listed entries the department chose earlier. That list includes two people from the Chinese mainland: Yao Yi, a 30-year-old single male from Nanjing who works in management for a joint venture in Guangzhou, and Yu Ying, a media supervisor and documentary film maker in Beijing.

In the public polling, Wang received 151,676 votes - almost three times as many as her nearest competitor - on the job ad's Website, which featured the video applications of all 50 hopefuls. Nearly 35,000 people from across the world applied for the gig.

Tourism Queensland will choose the other 10 finalists and announce the names on April 3. All 11 hopefuls will be flown to Hamilton Island in early May for interviews, and one will be declared the winner on May 6. The job begins on July 1.

The job is part of a A$1.7 million campaign to publicize the charms of northeastern Queensland.

(Agencies via Shanghai Daily March 26, 2009)