FRIDAY 11 JULY     ADELS GROVE

P left at 8am, to continue on his way to Melbourne. I was pretty sure he enjoyed his stay.

I was on tent housework; John was on rubbish and donkey fires, wood chopping and so on. M pottered about during the day, helping both of us with our jobs. Much appreciated.

I already liked the calm, quiet and competent management style of A.

We would be short-staffed, from about the middle of next week. V and F had to go to NSW to see a very sick grand son. B and M had to be in Mt Isa for medical matters that had arisen for them. I was not looking forward to that – it was such a busy period, too. Pity M wasn’t staying longer!

There was a bit of a stuff up today. There was a Wilderness Challenge group of fifteen  expected, but they hadn’t shown up by late afternoon. We were getting concerned they may have broken down somewhere remote. But then, a check of the paperwork showed that V had pencilled in the block booking on the wrong day. I had then, later on, when the list of actual guest names came through, entered the names in the appropriate tent spaces, without checking that the block entry was actually in the correct place. Cook was fairly calm about the surplus food already prepared! Some creative juggling of bookings was then required to fit the group into the correct place.

When I first started on the reception work, this year, I wondered why all bookings were entered in pencil, which smudged and became hard to read. By now, having become an expert in re-arranging arrangements, I understood.