I’ve been bad. Very bad. It’s very bad, and rather sad, when a travel writer goes off on long, interesting journeys, and fails to blog. How could  this be? Am I getting lazy? Have I lost my spark? Wasn’t it Yours Truly who created the very first international blog, in 1993/1994, with my Size of the World dispatches for GNN? (Hey, if you don’t believe me, see Wikipedia!)

Truth is, I prefer writing live blogs when I’m not on assignment – writing them from places like Kathmandu, where I can spend a lazy morning eating mango pancakes and pondering 10-rupee bills (see previous blog). In Tasmania, it was non-stop action: from tripping over fairy penguins (in Stanley) to picking off leeches (Cradle Mountain). This happened in December, which is summer Down There, for Islands, in a Lost Ozzie World that amazed me with its chaotic coastline, exotic star clusters, and scrappy wildflowers.

But the detail was in the Devils. That’s what I love about this profession: in the space of a couple of weeks, distant points of abstraction  become visceral reality. Before my visit to Tassie, the only Devil I’d seen was Taz, the voracious dervish of Bugs Bunny fame. Never dreamed I’d meet—and come to  adore—the actual item.

Real Tasmanian Devils are fierce, charming marsupials the size of small pit bulls, jet black with white markings and pink ears. My desire to see one took on a quasi-mythical intensity: as if it were a tiger, or unicorn. I’ll never forget the night I spent in a coastal shack with Geoff King, a rancher-turned naturalist on the island’s west coast. King had scraped a dead wallaby off a nearby road, tossed it in his pick-up truck, then staked out the road kill behind his cabin. We drank chardonnay inside, and waited. At about 10 pm, a gutteral snarl alerted us to a visitor. Sure enough, a Devil had appeared, and was tearing apart the carcass. Hey – if There Will Be Blood, I’d rather get it from a dead wallaby than Daniel Day-Lewis.

Like so many charming things on this planet, Devils are in trouble. A strange and mysterious cancer, Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD), threatens to drive the indigenous animal to extinction within two decades. In November 2007, Devils were officially listed as an Endangered Species. If you’d like to learn something about these amazing animals, and the efforts to save them, check out the work being done by Wade Anthony at his Devil orphanage: Devils at Cradle. Look for the May 2008 issue of Islands, too.

No one wants to read a blog longer than 600 words, so I’ll stop soon. More in a week or so, with a report from my very recent trip to Peru. Meanwhile, let me recommend a book I’m reading. She sort of came out of nowhere — writing, directing, and starring in the effervescent indy film, Me & You & Everyone We Know — but Miranda July seems to be everywhere these days. In 2006, she did a terrific solo performance at San Francisco’s Theater Artaud, and she turns out to be a captivating writer, as well. I’m halfway through her first book, No One Belongs Here More Than You. (Which, as readers of my 2004 ThingsAsian blogs may recall, is the travel slogan for Israel.) I have no idea (yet) why Ms. July chose this as her title, but her short stories are brilliant and haunting and dreamy, and she writes like… well, no one else, but think Richard Brautigan on estrogen.