I just love when the learning curve is steep. And I love being in nature, in the wild.

I had to make a living, so I got happily diverted into writing about expeditions and adventures.

New Zealand is weird. I mean, it does not seem of this earth, not to me. It really is like something made up.

I'm fascinated by characters who are faced with big losses and have to put their lives back together again.

Maybe more climate activists will think about the climate change not as an international problem to be resolved in an air-conditioned meeting hall, but as a guerilla war to be fought in the streets.

On the environment and climate change, I suspect that future generations will think there was too much timidity, too much fear of upsetting business. Basically, New Labour was very nervous about regulating business, or requiring it to do anything, even when there was a very clear social or environmental case for doing so.

Despite widely differing perspectives and agendas, there seems to be a remarkable global consensus that has built up over a fairly short period of time that climate change and ecology is one of the truly defining issues for humanity.

The ocean is the source of life. We all come from there. I think about these one-celled creatures, and I think about the planet. It is related to my obsession with biology, even if it's only a layperson's obsession. The way I visualise what's at the bottom of the ocean is very much to do with how I feel when I'm swimming in the sea.