TUESDAY 19 APRIL     PUNGALINA

I continued work on setting up “my” domain – the kitchen tent.

The reptile had departed the oven, overnight, so I was able to complete its cleaning and reassemble it all.

The kitchen tent had two meshed sides and two solid canvas ones. The meshed sides were the one behind the sink and stove, and the one next to that, which looked out towards the creek and fire pit area. O said that he had ordered another meshed side to be made and was waiting on that – it would improve air circulation through the kitchen no end.

As I cleaned and sorted gear, it became obvious that I must before much longer, work out what items would be needed to make the safari camp function properly, and up to the level that the new owners were expecting. The mish mash of motley, non matching crockery, glasses  and cutlery that had been unpacked just would not do. It certainly was not adequate for the numbers A was hoping for. When I gained an overall picture of what was here – and what might be secreted away at the main house – I would try and get to that.

It was certainly a good thing that I’d thought to bring several boxes of cooking needs with me from home – like sharp knives, measuring scales and cups, baking trays, stick blender. These were supplemented with the kitchen gear from the caravan, too.

O had told me that the dings were trained not to enter the kitchen tent, which was very good news. I discovered that they would put their front toenails right at the edge of the floor tarp, in the open flap doorway, but no further, and crane their heads in to watch what was going on. But however good they seemed to be, I still would not trust them to obey the rules if there was a big chunk of meat sitting out on a bench!

The dining tent was a short walk from the kitchen one. Just far enough for food to start to cool down, when we were taking meals to guests there, at night! It too had two meshed sides, which allowed views out to the encircling creek. There was the constant background noise of running water, as the creek there was a series of shallows over tree roots. At night, spotlights up in the trees lit up the creek in that area, with its lush greenery. It was all very well done and quite unique – full marks to O.

One thing I was told to be very careful about was not to leave guest tents open – apparently dings just love chewing up things like pillows!