Florida - state of lakes

Orlando is full of lakes, as is the whole of Florida - I remember Lake Okeechobee from 5th Form Geography - but forget the geological reasons for there being so many. I won't have time to see the (Kingston Trio / Tony Joe White) Everglades this trip, alas - but just looking at the maps (I'm a geographer, remember! - we like them!) reminds me of being in Europe and the UK - hardly a place name I don't recognise. Have obviously read far too many Jack Reacher novels!

4 stretch hummers in the hotel's service park and another in the carpark for the rest of us. No wonder the Gulf of Mexico is full of oil - not all of it from well-head spills! As for carparks - those between the airport and the hotel were mile after mile of massive four-storey things. Amazing.Toll freeways everywhere - 2 in the 12-mile stretch to the hotel.

I'll have my camera at the ready during the 2-hour trip to Gainesville where my colleague Mark Hostetler lectures in the Dept of Wildlife and Ecology at the University (that's where I'll be first giving my presentation as a lecture to some of his students ). Mark and his wife will be taking me and their two children to see crocodiles and sand cranes over the weekend - looks like the wildlife here is significantly wilder than ours in New Zealand!

Find out more about Mark and his work at:

• Wildlife Information - http://www.wec.ufl.edu/extension/
• Living Green - http://livinggreen.ifas.ufl.edu
• Program for Resource Efficient Communities - http://www.buildgreen.ufl.edu