One of the things I like best about this author job is the variety in the work. No two days are the same. One day you're sitting at your desk trying to win a soccer match in the Afghan desert, the next you're on a boat trying to cook a loaf of bread on a diesel engine. And a few weeks later you're travelling round Australia meeting thousands of people.

I've been doing that for the last six weeks (the travelling and meeting, not the baking) and I've had a great time. Boy Overboard has been a really interesting book to talk to people about. Lots of opinions, lots of feelings, lots of good discussions. Only one threat of violence, and that was just from a librarian who saw me scribbling on a book and didn't realise I was an author.

Author tours wouldn't be possible without the goodwill and hard work of a lot of people, and I'd like to say thank you. My memory's not good enough to mention everyone by name, but I haven't forgotten their kindness.

To everyone who helped make my last six weeks so interesting, enjoyable and surgery-free, I appreciate it. Thank you for the hospitality, the book purchases, the dry cleaning, the literary insights, the banana and cheese sandwiches, the directions, the microphones that don't electrocute you when you pick them up, the ear plugs, the signing pens, the advice, the replacement motel keys, the driving, the throat lozenges, the arrangements, the low-fat yoghurt, the great questions, the mind-boggling cane toad killing methods and the friendship.

Now I'm off to Hong Kong to do it all again. (Except the banana and cheese sandwiches.) Until next month, oo-roo and happy reading,

17 September 2002