I was brought up in Alexandra, the driest, hottest, and coldest part of New Zealand. Now  I’m the token terrestrial guy in the Centre for Marine Studies, University of Queensland. Huh? Yeah, I get that all the time. I did my PhD in Geology at the University of Otago, New Zealand, where all the geos thought I was a botanist, and all the botanists thought I was a geo. Then four years in the Department of Plant Science, University of Tasmania, and finally to the University of Queensland. My job is teaching Australian ecology to groups of visiting American students. They come here for the reef (hence Marine Studies) but I get to take them to the leeches and the mud. Ask them about my “strolls” (and the crocs). I coordinate the terrestrial ecology courses for the University of California, Stanford University, and Hoary, William Smith, and Union Colleges in New York. When I’m not doing that I’m looking at the prehistory of Australasian vegetation, with a view to climate change and biogeography. And the rest of the time I try and travel. This past year (2006) I made it to Moldova and Transdnistre.