WEDNESDAY 25 JUNE     ADELS GROVE

I was on tent housekeeping, John on canoes.

I looked after reception first, until 11am, then did the couple of vacated tents. With the extended stay of the pals, tent servicing is at a minimum – but we will pay for it on the day they go!

After a late lunch, I helped back on reception for a while.

Two ladies from the Remote Area Family Services arrived and would stay a couple of days to do the toddler’s first “art” session. This service would be supporting the bub in his early childhood development. It is a really worthwhile – and needed – organization.

We held a fund raiser for the RAFS. We’d put up signs at Reception and, after tea cooked up a mountain of pikelets, so we could charge $5 a head for a special talk by Mike Archer, and supper.

Our signs generated a big crowd from the campers – very pleasing. The women from RAFS spoke briefly about their work. Then our star – Mike – talked about the progress on his current pet project – whether they would be able to clone the thylacine back into existence. He said they were making encouraging progress – and put up quite a convincing case that they would make better domestic pets than the conventional dog! He had the audience entranced – us too!

The biologists in the party passed around the critters they had collected whilst here – most of which would be returned whence they came, once the digging was done. The tourists were suitably impressed by a childrens python, a Gulf snapping turtle, a file snake, a pygmy bat, but the star of the show was our large olive python, who had put in a timely appearance earlier in the evening – heading under our caravan – and been retrieved for display.

We raised $540 for RAFS – but there was an awful lot of washing up of the supper items, for us to do at 10pm. All for a good cause.

I was thinking that we might just come back again, another year, to help out for a few weeks at the busy time – but to make sure to do it when the pals are here – just to hear Mike speak!

On reception, I had gotten sick of regularly answering the same tourist questions: How far is it to…..? What is the road like to…..? How do I get to…..? So I had drawn up a mud map – the old geography skills came in handy. Most of the commercial maps were badly inaccurate for this region, especially for the dirt tracks through to Doomadgee and Bowthorn. I photocopied a supply of these and we sold them at the desk, for $1 a copy. The money went straight into the Flying Doctor donation tin on the desk – and my map proved to be a good little fund raiser for that cause.