OK, here goes the first post of my travels. I better just clarify the reasoning behind the name of this blog site. In my final interview for the Nuffield scholarship after eloquently describing my industry, study topic and business, I blundered around and dug a big hole with a heap of mumblings when asked about myself. Desperately trying to dig my way out I said, “We’re just a mob of bloody goat catchers.” OMG! Truth comes out under pressure apparently. (for those that don’t know, I’m talking about mustering feral goats.)

I’m in Washington DC after flying from Adelaide, a distance of 16,745 sky kilometres. I’m meeting up with the other scholars on Saturday for the Contemporary Scholars Conference where we’ll chew the fat on global agricultural issues and visit some farms in Pennsylvania. Then I’ll spend a few weeks touring research stations, universities, producers and importers across Tennessee, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Los Angeles.

Then it’s back home to do some work before heading off again for 6 weeks in September/October to circumnavigate the globe with 5 other scholars, then back again until early next year when I really get into the nitty gritty of it and go to China, Africa and the USA again. In between all that, I’m taking a flight to Malaysia with some goats and hopefully travelling in Mongolia helping with rangeland monitoring and interviewing herders of goats and sheep in the Gobi desert.

The flight from LA to DC today was fantastic with really good visibility until Kansas (Toto are we still in Kansas?) It was amazing to see the snow on the edge of the desert, fly over the Rio Grande and that arid Arizona and New Mexico country. I will be driving from Texas up through New Mexico to Denver Colorado in a few weeks, I hope there is still some snow about then. There was plenty here in DC tonight on the side of the road and pushed up in mounds at the airport. That biting cold wind was refreshing after being cooped up on a plane.

I’ve got a meeting with Meat and Livestock Australia’s North American branch tomorrow so I better get some shut-eye. Here’s a few pics of the family get together in Adelaide before I left, the great season at home, more rain shots Dunc just emailed through from today and one iPhone shot from out of my window in New Mexico I think.