The 16-year-old guitarist from Temagog – a town of less than 200 people about 70km north of Port Macquarie – last night won the $250,000 grand final prizemoney on Prime TV’s Australia’s Got Talent.

“It hasn’t sunk in that I’ve won,” he said.

“It’s just so surreal. I still can’t believe it.”

The talented youngster beat hundreds of contestants to be picked as the nation’s favourite undiscovered talent.

The award was calculated from viewers’ votes, who could phone or SMS to vote for their favourite contestant.

But Smokin’ Joe Robinson didn’t think he had a chance of winning the competition after a landline and mobile phone services to more than 10,000 Telstra customers were cut by vandals at Kempsey last week – during the time votes were being counted.

“It totally freaked me out when I found out the lines were down and I thought I wouldn’t have Kempsey’s votes,” he said.

One of the judges, Tom Burlinson, said he thought the public had voted well.

“The guitar is almost a part of him,” Burlinson said.

“He is so talented and so committed, I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of him in the future.”

Robinson isn’t sure what he will do with the money.

“I’m naturally pretty stingy, so I won’t be blowing it on a $200,000 guitar or anything,’’ he said

The musician picked up a guitar as a 10-year-old and was playing professionally just one year later.

He left school last year – halfway through year 11 – to

concentrate on guitar playing full time.

Robinson will head to Nashville on Saturday to record his second album and play at a number of gigs.

The young guitar player performed for Hastings

audiences during the Camden Haven Music Festival and at The Westport Club and Port Macquarie Panthers.

Luckily for Port fans, he plans to play a few more gigs down this way when he returns for the States.