How time flies!

Going by the philosophy of better late than never, here's a very belated Happy New Year!

I find it hard to believe that it is March already. Time really does fly! Apologies for not posting any updates to my blog for quite a while. I tend to rely on photos to relay many of my experiences but I find that this particular website is an absolute pain when it comes to uploading photos. It crashes repeatedly and with too many other things to see to, the system eventually got to me and put me off 'blogging'. Well, I'm back with renewed effort but with a somewhat different strategy. I will keep the photos on this blog to the bare minimum and I have instead created a photo album online that I will update at the end of each month. Do drop me an e-mail if you would like the link to this album.

I have had a very busy start to the new year with both my PhD and the two other research project that I am working on entering into their next and more intense stages of fieldwork.

It is so exciting to see my PhD data starting to trickle in - returns of a year's worth of hard work. My friend and fellow PhD student Pat and I were out letterbox dropping my survey to just short of 2400 households in my three study areas last week. After 6 long days, 1600 odd kms and several episodes where we were saved by our 4W drive when we thought we were helplessly bogged down in the absolutely middle of nowhere, it was really exciting to arrive back and find my pigeon hole at UoW filled with completed surveys - Yay!

Having properly initiated my fieldwork, the NSW Rural Fire Service has embraced my project to the full and I am receiving wonderful support both from their HQ and their local brigade staff. I am pencilled in to complete my basic fire fighting training in May. Should be interesting and fun.

A large part of January went with preparing for and then looking after 9 American students who came out to take a 3 week intensive undergraduate subject on environment and society in Australia. We took them on a 9 day fieldtrip where we walked up several mountains, spent some facinating time with Aboriginal people, saw God only knows how many kangaroos and where the students generally went through a huge personal growth curve having been pushed way out of their usual comfort zones. It was exhausting work but very satisfying too.

Work has very much dominated my new year but there has thankfully also been time to relax in fantastic settings with wonderful friends. A few adventures that spring to mind is playing in the waves down the south coast of NSW over new year, touring the vineyards of the Hunter Valley with a good friend visiting from the US, going on a 5 hour bush walk on Mt. Royal where we walked through enchanted woodland covered by moss and many other types of vegetation, whilst enjoying the wonderful views and the magical light of the late afternoon sun.