I have been in New Zealand, playing with my grandchildren, learning my way around the North Island, and pursuing the ghost of Sir George Grey, idiot, bully, coward and all-round swine, who introduced many feral animals, including kookaburras and two species of wallaby, into New Zealand.

I will be mentioning him in the book currently in revision, but I may come back to feral introductions to NZ at a later date.

More importantly, I was looking into the gold rushes in New Zealand, and I flew off to Brisbane, where I was given the 2010 Children's Book Council of Australia Eve Pownall Book of the Year award for information books.

Now, home three days, I'm packing for the Flinders Ranges in South Australia in about 72 hours. It's a week of enjoyable research, which is always the best sort.