Tough week for Dutch kangaroos...

Dutch News reports today that being a kangaroo or wallaby in the Netherlands has been a hazardous way of life this week. A three-year old wallaby with a baby still in her pouch has been stolen from a city farm in Oud-Beijerland, just south of Rotterdam, according to police. Earlier this week nine red kangaroos, five of which were pregnant, were taken from Stramproy in the south. Seems to be an orchestrated campaign, but to what end?

Today's photo is another from Bali. This is Padang Padang, a famous surf break in Bali. We were staying just up the hill from this spot, and it is where I took my first few surfing lessons. It turns out January is the 'wrong season' in Bali - the surf is relatively poor. But for a novice like me that was fine - the 1-2 metre waves were plenty enough for me to try and get the hang of it as we skated along above the reef!

Back...

It seemed like an appropriate theme for my first post in too long. Back in Amsterdam after travelling to Bali for the climate conference and Australia for a summer Christmas. Back to work after a much needed holiday and recharge of the batteries. Back in to training after not doing a single triathlon in 2007. And my blog is back.

There is much to catch up on, but I am not going to look too far back. Plenty has been said and written about the election. With Kyoto ratified and an apology to the Stolen Generation, Australia seems like a very different place. It was interesting to pick up on the optimism in Australia during my visit. It was not long after the election, still very much a honeymoon period, but I can only describe it as a sense of possibility - that the narrowness of the previous decade was gone. As one friend texted me on election night, the election result was "the end of the darkness".

And a lot has been said and written about Bali. It was a bizarre and fascinating fortnight in the bowels of the Bali International Conference Centre, with plenty of drama, especially in the final few hours as the United States was taken on by the rest of the world. The overall outcome will not solve the issue of climate change, and it could have been more inspirational, but it was certainly the necessary first step. But we have much work to do in the next two years to ensure the final deal in Copenhagen delivers the radical emissions reductions this planet urgently needs.

But enough politics for now. I have also been taking plenty of photos, and have some nice ones to share. Today's one is from Bali. Nicky and I returned to Bali after Australia to spend five days having surfing lessons. This shot was taken at the Surf Camp we stayed at, a statue silhouetted against the dusk sky.