THURSDAY 9 JUNE     PUNGALINA

We were getting cool mornings now, and sometimes there was fog over the place, which created some really interesting effects around the camp and creek. It was hard now, to properly recall the intense and exhausting heat of a couple of months ago.

Cane Toad Clearing on a misty morning

Safari Camp in the mist

With friend’s visit over, and boss A’s looming, it was a real flurry to get everything done that A had wanted, in discussions with O.

John commenced constructing a big set of shelves that would go across the one solid canvas wall of the kitchen tent. He planned to weld a strong framework from pieces of steel that were about the place, then mill planks of timber to lay across the framework. Probably ironwood. It wouldn’t matter that the timber would be rather rough – it just needed to be strong enough to hold all the crockery, glassware that I was expecting, and some foodstuffs.

O decided that John’s welding wasn’t good enough, and took over. He did not seem too happy with John displaying such practical skills. Maybe it clashed with his pre-conceived notions of teachers, for whom he had little time.

WEDNESDAY 8 JUNE     PUNGALINA

The campers left. Their comments in the Visitors’ Book were: “Outstanding place. We will be back” and “Magnificent week. We will return.”

It was our day off, but John had to do the usual watering up at the house. I’d had to use the camp fridge on Monday and Tuesday – so the generator had been on for a while on both days. This morning I took the oddments that were left up to the house fridge, and cleaned out the camp fridge.

Spent the rest of the day mostly relaxing at the van. I did some reading.

We did go out for a while to do some bird surveys at a couple of locations.

Egrets

Jabiru flying away

Woollybut in flower

MONDAY 6 JUNE     PUNGALINA

John changed the oil in the camp generator.

This lived in an interesting structure, not far from our van. The walls – about shoulder height – were constructed from mud brick. The roof was a tarp. The door had been fashioned from bark slabs, attached to a frame.

John was somewhat disconcerted to find the shed skin of a snake on the floor beside the genset. He hoped it was a temporary resident at the time of the skin shedding. But obviously, we would now need to be aware, whenever dealing with the genset.

Generator house

O had asked if I could put on a lunch at the camp, before friend left again.

I set up the lunch table outside on the grass, in the shade.

I served gazpacho soup – chilled soup was so suitable for the warm days there. After that were plates of salad, hard boiled eggs, tinned ham. Then a platter of paw paw, and some cheese. We all ate together. She was very pleasant and easy to talk with. I think we all enjoyed the meal.

Later in the afternoon, I faxed the next truck orders to Mt Isa. These were big orders. Just after that truck delivery, we were expecting boss A’s arrival, with a full party of guests, so these orders would be the supplies for them. I was conscious of the need to make a great impression with them.

The Woolworths order ran to two pages on the computer spreadsheet that John had set up! It included items like dips, assorted cheese varieties, smoked salmon, 6 tubs of butter, 4 loaves of bread, after dinner mints, assorted dry biscuit packets, various types of Twinings tea bags, 18 bake-at-home dinner rolls, various tins of fruit.

The green grocery order was substantial, including 3 pineapples, 3 rockmelons, 2 honeydew melons, 6 dozen eggs, 5 kilos of onions, 10 kilos potatoes, 4 kilos tomatoes, ditto zucchini, 10 capsicums, 24 oranges, and so on.

After all that, went back to the camp and cleaned up after the lunch.

John had finished making a sign for the little beach area he’d named Red Claw Beach, due to the remnants of water monitor meals, and had put up the sign. it looked good.