Vegetation

I love David Attenborough programmes. I even have an 'A' level in geography. I read maps and atlases for fun, I spend most of my time on planes with my nose pressed up against the window. I even took a ship's compass on board a flight to America once, which was handy because they didn't assign me a window seat, which I was livid about, especially when the people in the window seats sat reading their newspapers.

I love looking at the earth and wondering about how it was formed and continues to be shaped by man or by nature. However, just because I like it, doesn't mean I'm actually any good at it. The 'A' level was a grade 'C' and would have been a 'D' if the glaciation question hadn't cropped up.

(And if I'd jumped over that sodding ravine in Delamere Forest, it might have been a 'B'. The teacher was a hard marker).

Anyway, I can spot a corrie at twenty paces but I can't tell you much about the vegetation we saw driving across Fraser Island, so bugger it, I'll just say exactly what I said on the trip and reveal my ignorance. If Mr Attenborough is reading, perhaps he'll put it more eloquently.

"ooh look at that funny tree growing up out of the sand....how does it get it's water? Oh it's very photogenic, the contrast between the green and the white. Where's the camera?"

"oh it's like a proper rainforest. It's really dense, all the undergrowth, the ferns and palms and all that. Stop the car and I'll take a picture of the sunlight flooding through over there".

I know. I'm a philistine. You're still reading though.