One of the joys of our recent trip through the Simpson was to get reaquainted with our old friends Lyle and Shell Southwell, whom we have seen little of for many years. Sitting around the campfire at night yarning - you know how it goes!

We soon discovered that Lyle and Shell have an interesting gig - he is co-host of the Breakfast Show on FaithFM - a national Christian radio network, and she was the Show's producer! Each morning, when he had phone reception, Lyle would call in to his co-host Mon and give their listeners a live update on our travels. All we got from the one sided conversation we were hearing was that they laughed a lot!

Anyway, on our return, Lyle interviewed me about Cultivate, an annual Agriculture/Country Living Conference we are involved in here on the mid-north coast, and about some topical issues in agriculture and health. He called again this morning out of the blue asking for comment on the NZ Department of Health's encouragement of it's residents to eat more vegan and vegetarian food in a bid to reduce the country's carbon footprint, to improve food sustainability, and to improve the health and longevity of it's citizens. It even called for hospitals to develop alternative menu's to encourage plant-based diets, and to make plant-based food more available to patients, visitors, and staff in canteens and cafe's.

Seems those over the ditch are getting a head start on us - again!