Cold, cold.,cold...

Apparently it's not that cold this year in Canberra! I guess for someone from Antarctica, this is true! I'm waiting for my blood to thicken up. In the mean time we had a good day out at the Tidbinbilla nature reserve. Lots of kangaroos and wallabies out there as well as a fair few emus! Gotta go: Katie is waking up!...

Canberra...

Well, it has been a while now since Reunion! We are settling in now to life in Canberra. It is certainly more low key than life on a tropical island although you wouldn't think so on the face of it! CSIRO is a good place to work: they've even given me a webpage! :

http://www.csiro.au/people/Darren.Peck.html

The weather of course is the big change (i've seen my first frost in the last few days!), and the work I am doing is different with different challenges. It's all good though and I'm enjoying the fact that I can work in the entomological field, as i've always had a love of invertebrates. More news as time and interest dictates! au revoir..

Last blog, Reunion Island...

Well, there is only 4 days to go before I head off to Europa Island for my last field trip and Yoshimi and Katie head back to Japan on the way home to Australia! The last year or so has been a big challenge (for both of us) with Katie arriving and the constant difficulties of language and culture. I was asked recently 'was it worth it?'. I've thought about this, and I think a poem (unknown author) answers this question best;
"To live is to risk dying, To hope is to risk despair, To try at all is to risk failure. But risk we must, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The man who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing".
Sounds all philosophical etc. but in reallity you sometimes wonder! So that's it from Reunion, we met some great people, I managed to completely murder the French language and we saw 'some cool stuff'! au revoir...

Tromelin Island...

wow, great trip (albeit very short!) to Tromelin island to count boobies (the feathered variety). We flew via military aircraft (1.5 hrs) then 2 hours counting birds, then half an hour for some weather station hospitality (wine, cheese, curried fish for lunch), then back on the plane and home! The shortest field trip that i have ever been on!

Cynical thought of the day....

French administration: how ever bad you may think it is, be patient, it gets a hell of a lot worse! Oh, on a more upbeat note, here are some photos i took on my daily walk to uni. abientout!

Volcanoe!....

Well, i made it (finally) to the top of the volcanoe! Wow, what an experience; its just amazing to be standing on the rim, feeling the heat, hearing the earth move and seeing the larva erupt so unpredictably! It took 2 hours to climb to the top and the weather changed about 5 times before we reached the summit. It was like seeing the earth when it was originally formed. I guess it was more amazing because the only volcanoes in Australia are ancient and not active.

Shearwaters and abseiling...

Our lab had an outing the other day to the wedge-tailed shearwater colony (http://www.google.com.au/search?q=wedge-tailed+shearwater+Peck&hl=en&lr=&start=10&sa=N) on Reunion. What Matthieu didn't tell me was that they breed in cliffs and that we had to abseil down the access them! It was a good experience though and i have the blisters on my hands to prove it! All good fun. The next field trip will be to Europa on the 25th of January for 4 weeks. After that i head home so lots to do before!