Arrival and on to Tasmania

We arrived safely in Melbourne on October 3rd, but very jet-lagged.  Roger's old friend from their days agitating for East Timor's independence, Magda Karagiannakis, picked us up at the airport and put us to bed.  Some company we turned out to be!  Magda is now teaching at LaTrobe Law School. The next day we flew an hour or so south to Hobart, Tasmania.  Tasmania has the smallest population of any of the Australian States.  Damian Bugg, retired Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (chief federal prosecutor), met us there.  He is currently the Chancellor (chair of the Board) of the University of Tasmania. On the 5th, we did a joint presentation at the Law School, generally on developing legal issues generated by the internet.  Amy discussed questions of electronic commerce and the work of the UN Commission on International Trade Law in negotiating model laws and  treaties in the area.  Roger addressed the problem of cyberwarfare in the context of the crime of aggression, war crimes and terrorism crimes.

We then took off for five days driving around Tasmania.  It is early spring here.  The yellow wattles are making a bright show as are some lovely pink heathers along the roadside.  The same morons who brought gorse to New Zealand brought it here too. (The terrain is very like New Zealand's.)  The gorse has its yellow flowers out, but it is of course the species is a menace in pasture lands like these.  Some sheep, cows, cattle and forestry -- and tourism -- seem to be the moneymakers.

The highlights included an encounter with some live Tasmanian Devils and a death-defying ATV ride over white sand dunes.

The Devils have suffered a serious decline in numbers as a result of a mysterious illness and a number of survival populations are being raised in quarantine from the wild population. Devils are voracious meat eaters whose main function in the food chain is to eat dead animals.  The population we saw at meal time was pigging out on road-kill that had been specially collected for them.

The photo of your heroes on the dunes tells it all!

Back to Melbourne (the second largest Greek city in the world) on the 11th.  Some more professional commitments for both of us there and a little playtime.  Then on to Sydney.

More later!