Hi All,

Just to let you know that we are now sunning ourselves in Cairns, Australia. It seems quite surreal that on the 16th December we have both been sun bathing and Jack has managed to burn himself. Usually we'd be wrapped up warm inside with the heating on (only if you live in Jacks house as dad has probably still not put the heating on !!!!!)

Cairns is really nice its not as bigas we had expected. You cant go in the water that surrounds the city as it is inhabited by crocodiles. You can get a bus to the beach but there is a man made pool and beach near the marina which is free and its fantastic, theres even a free BBQ area where you can cook things. We were there all day today and again tomorrow. We took our own picnic which is cheaper than buying snadwiches.

We have decided to give ourselves an early Christmas present and we have booked in on Monday for 3 days, 2 nights aboard a ship to live aboard and do our advanced diving course. It was a bit more expensive than in thailand but we can afford to do it as we had such a cheap time in thailand and we were really careful with our money. Even with the diving added on we'l still be way below our average daily budget which is always good. We start it on monday. Its more advanced than the open water we get to do underwater photography and a deeper dive to 30 meters which Jack is looking forward to. Oh yeah and did i mention that its on the great barrier reef. We decided to do it as we'll never get the chance again.

We have ooked our Christmas now and we are staying in Mission beach which is a bit further down the coast but not too far. We also booke dnew year at Airlie beach. We've decided instead of having a normal Xmas dinner were goin to have a barbie with some steak and aked pototoes and carrot cake for pudding. We had a steak last night and it was really good (better than water uffalo which we were eating in Thailand).

Anyway we will write again after we have done our diving course and hopefully we can put some underwater pictures on for you.

Hope your all well,

Speak again soon, y the way if you cnat understand this message the keyboard im writing on has some letters missing !!!

Lots of Love

Liz and Jack xxx