This is the middle of winter??!?

Three days ago, leaving the house involved twenty minutes of mental preparation, thirteen layers of protective clothing and a jug of hot water just in case my car had become an opaque-windowed igloo. A three hour plane flight later, I’m officially still in the same hemisphere and in the same season, but in Surfers Paradise it’s more a case of figuring out how many layers of clothing I can remove while holding on to a shred of decency. From what I’ve seen, the locals live in swimsuits or wetsuits and maintain a year-round tan and hard physique. I really should have bought some fake tan. I had no idea how hot it would be here at this time of year and the thought of exposing too much of my pale, winter self just doesn’t appeal. I might scare children. Actually I did already scare some 'children', when I got out of bed half naked and didn’t quite think about the fact that our bedroom French doors overlook the swimming pool. Of course, the pool would have to be full of teenage boys. I think I heard sounds of screaming, or it might have been ‘woo hooooo!’. It’s hard to be sure.

On the other side the apartment opens right onto the beach, which seems to maintain a constant population of surfer dudes. Today there were also two whales playing not far out from shore. I was relaxing in the sand but after the 10th passer-by asked me if I’d seen the whales, I got up and had a look. I think I saw a tail.

Getting some exercise is not a problem. All day we are low-intensity, long duration exercising, although I think I’m the only one that realises it. Everyone else just thinks we are shopping and sight-seeing. I’ve been bleating on about my eating over in the Fatloss laboratory for those of you that are interested what I eat. It’s going better than expected, although eating out twice a day is an interesting challenge. I’m aiming for healthy maintenance or a small amount of fatloss while I’m on holiday and to be relaxed and ready to get back to some fat-blasting the minute I land back in NZ.