THURSDAY 31 – TUESDAY 5 APRIL     ADELS GROVE

I was mostly on kitchen duties through this period. I found it quite enjoyable. The boss was responsible for the meals, for the most part. I was being kitchen hand, doing lunches for staff and any visitors who wanted same, making desserts, salads and the like. The numbers were small, so it was a chance to be a bit creative. I think the boss was pleased to have me as backup in the kitchen.

Because of the hot weather and small numbers, I was able to feature salads in the meals more than was usual here. They were fun to make: coleslaw, potato salad, fancy lettuce based platters and the like. I quite often assembled fruit platters for dessert, or made fresh fruit salads, occasionally trifle.

It seemed to be cooling down somewhat, especially at night. Or maybe we were just acclimatizing.

John was on canoes throughout this period. R, who preferred to do this job, had hurt his back before Easter, and John was the most experienced person to replace him.

X and Y were proving to be pretty useless. They religiously took two half hour smokos each day and an hour for lunch. Longer, if they could sneak it. She, in particular, sneaked off down to their van often during the day. She was very good at hiding from work, or dragging out the few jobs she didn’t object to. I found her a nasty person, too. She definitely did not have the pleasant manner needed to be on Reception! They did not pitch in and help with the dishes in the evening, either, in proper Adels style. He seemed to be obsessed with food – ate hugely. He was always on the lookout to snaffle the best leftovers, and prowled the fridge, freezer and the dry store! I would quite often go to put out food left from the previous evening’s meal, for the staff lunches – only to find that he’d raided the fridges at some stage through the morning and eaten the lot.

Friend F from Griffith  phoned one night. He and V would  be here in May. The boss would like them here sooner. I suspected  she wanted to get rid of X and Y as soon as she could. I had a feeling they would ask for more pay, once we had gone and there would be only L and R left. They were always moaning about the pay and conditions, and trying to get us onside about how bad it all was – which we did not agree with at all. Definitely not the sort of staff one wanted. It certainly brought home how much remote places like this can find it hard to obtain really good seasonal staff. It was always my view that we worked, in part, for the experience itself, and the chance to explore where tourists could not go. It was not just about salary and rigid conditions.

I knew that X and Y had not yet visited the National Park, at the time we arrived. But I also noticed that they avoided doing so, on their days off. Hmmm…..