Dear the Hildrew Family

Thank you for buying us the Whitsundays. We have just got off the boat this morning, hot, sunburnt and with rather bad sea-legs. The world is swaying rather a lot and we have only just started our first beer. We went and lived on a catamaran for the last two nights, sleeping out under the stars, sailing around in the daytime visiting beaches and snorkelling, looking at little fishes.

We have been really lucky as the last two days have been perfect 30 degrees blue skies. The snorkelling was perfect. I normally don't like snorkelling based on the fact that fish are either a. very boring or b.very scary and evil but these were pretty and didn't eat me so I didn't mind them too much. We were sleeping with a group of 9 other people. There were six Germans and six English. At first, it was a bit awkward because there was clearly a divide between those who rudely refused to speak English and the English. Slowly over the course of the two days, through the international language of talking about football, we all bonded. I cleverly turned the conversion to talking about the Women's game, given we beat them at the last World Cup and avoid any mention of the Men's game so could enjoy the feeling of being smug even if they didn't know they had lost to us.

The boat was run by a lovely bubbly Australian girl called Jas who was very blonde in all senses of the word and a grizzled old captain called Damo, short for Damian who conformed to the Australian traditional that any word, however normal, should be shortened and an 'o' added to the end. He spent most of the time winding everyone up with tales of piranhas, jellyfish, sharks and other Australian wonders that could kill you as soon as you got in the water. He also told me that he got sacked from his last job; setting up casinos in Moscow when he pulled a gun on a customer. I treated him with the utmost courtesy after that. He did compliment me on the colour of my nail polish so he wasn't that bad.

Living on a boat for two days has its ups and downs. For example, it was very cramped. There was about a gap of two foot between our bed and the roof of our cabin. This, combined with the tropical heat, can lead you to wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air and suffering extreme bouts of claustrophobia. However, to get over this, you can easily go up on deck and lay there; the only sound in the world being the water lapping at the boat. when the moon has set and there isn't any light pollution to speak of, the milky way glitters above you in all its glory and the cramped cabin is so easily forgotten.

We saw lots of turtles casually floating around on the water. The are big b******s but very chilled out and peaceful. We also saw several little sharks. One of which hung around our boat for ages one night, using the light from the boat to eat all the little fishes that swam around. When you are sitting at home in a pub having a beer, you should always remember that there are far more interesting and fun places in the world to get drunk in.

Another downside of living on a boat is the toilet. It wouldn't have been so bad normally but my first attempt at using it on the first night led to me unfortunately blocking it. In my defence, I am still adjusting to using loo roll again after the bumguns in Asia and just can't get the hang of it. This has several rather unfortunate consequences. Firstly, you have to tell the people in charge who have to stick there hand down the toilet to relieve the blockage, thereby increasing the embarrassment. Secondly, there only two toilets on board putting extra pressure on the other one, thereby annoying the other passengers. Thirdly, the toilet is right by our already cramped and over hot cabin putting literal meaning to the old saying 'you shouldn't s*** on your own doorstep'. I vowed instantly to not poo again on board for the remaining two days. Paradise will always be twinned in my mind with stomach cramps and a constant desire to use the toilet.

The highlight of the trip supposedly is a visit to Whitehaven beach. This was voted the second best beach in the world and is made of pure silica sand which gets everywhere but is very good at cleaning silver. All my jewelry is now very very shiny. Maybe after two and a half months of travelling I am getting a bit jaded. After a while there is only so many beautiful beaches you can visit before you get a bit 'it's ok but it's not Brighton Beach is it?' The highlight of the beach was finding out there was a public toilet there; a proper toilet that wouldn't get blocked at all. I was very happy. Trust me, you really don't appreciate being able to go to the toilet whenever you want until it is taken away from you.

We are now back in Airlie Beach. This is a backpacker's town whose only use is a stop off for people going to the Whitsundays and for a place for people to get drunk. However, I feel like I should mention the supermarket here because it is the complete opposite to Eltham Sainsburys in terms of clientele. While any supermarket in Australia is never going to make my top 5 list, Airlie Beach Supermarket definitely has the most attractive customers I have ever seen in one supermarket. Everyone is young, bronzed and beautiful. This is in stark contrast to Eltham Sainsbury's where everyone is fat and ugly and spending most of their time screaming at equally fat and ugly children. They all look, and sorry for not knowing the correct political correct term, but slightly special. Being the young bronzed and beautiful backpackers that we are, we definitely fit in better in Airlie Beach supermarket than Eltham Sainsbury's.

On that note I will leave you. We are off to catch a night bus to Town of 1770 for Christmas. I feel that there might not be a suitable toilet on board so might make the most of this pub's toilet again before we leave

Lots of love

Jim, Donna and Chloe

PS One of the German girls on the tour was particularly attractive, had large breasts and had a tendancy to wear ill fitting bikinis. Chloe and me have been discussing if it was possible to mention her in this blog in any way but cannot think of a way.