We're getting pretty used to the early rises here and this morning was no exception. Breakfast by 6.30am, pile into a number of different vans and then a two-and-a-half hour drive out to a remote community where we will be building 20 homes over two days, in conjunction with the Tabitha Foundation.

It was a long drive, the last 45 minutes of which were down a dusty dirt track with some pretty serious potholes. That was the reason we travelled to the site in about five fans as opposed to a big bus, because the bigger bus would never have been able to get down the track.

Click here for a gallery of photos from the first day of building.

All the way along, we saw people living in shacks with the odd shop popping up seemingly out of nowhere, which I imagine is where the locals get their supplies.

It was good to arrive at the site and although we had some idea of what to expect, having spoken to the boys who were here in 2010, we didn’t really have any idea of how we were going to build 20 houses. And there wasn't much instruction either.

We pretty much piled out of the bus, strapped on our knee pads, put on gloves, pick up a hammer and, after being organised into teams of three, we were off.

Fortunately, one of the coaches joined us - and they had been here before - so they could give us a few tips.

But basically, the shell of the house was already prepared by a building team, but we had to nail down the floor and then put up the walls.

We battled through the initial couple of hours, but once we got the hang of it, we started to fly through.

The aim was to get 12 done in the first day because we needed to get to an orphanage, about another 90 minute drive away, which was where we spent the night.

An hour before we were scheduled to leave it didn’t look like we would reach that target because some very dark clouds rolled in and it belted down with rain.

The organising team from Tabitha thought it was too dangerous and called a stop to work. We were walking back to base camp when the rain stopped just as quickly as it started and we were keen to reach our day's target, so we went back and got stuck into it.

It was a pretty solid day, probably the toughest day's work I have done because the DIY stuff is not really my go. So when we got back into the vans we were pretty happy with ourselves.

When we arrived at the Awareness Cambodia Orphanage, which is run and funded by a Perth couple, the kids were a little curious at first, but we settled in, had a great dinner and then the kids put on a concert. It was highly entertaining, specially one little girl who danced Gangam Style with a hoola hoop around her waist. She could really move!

The concert finished when our chaplain, Paul Morrison and Mark Nicoski, played the guitar and sang a few songs with the rest of us as backing singers - though some were better than others. After that we went to our dormitory, played some cards and went to sleep - aware that we would have another pretty big day ahead of us.

For further information about West Coast's involvement in Cambodia, visit our dedicated Cambodia 2012 page.