WEDNESDAY 25 MAY     PUNGALINA

I was able to get sneaker onto my sore foot, though it was still swollen and I could only just tie up the lace.

John planted out the baby paw paw plants that he’d dug up.

Newly planted rows of paw paws along the side fence

He had more of the shade frame up. The final stage of this, before the roofing went on, had been to run heavy wires the length of the structure, between the wooden beams, to provide fairly closely spaced support for the shade cloth.

Snake beans climbing vigorously up the tripod; corn behind that

The corn he had planted in the vegie garden, soon after we arrived, was growing well.

I faxed off the order to the Tennant Creek supermarket, for this week’s mail plane. It seemed a rather large order, given that we’d recently had supplies via truck. Included were items such as: 3 dozen eggs, 2 kg bacon, 1kg mixed grass seed, 5kg potatoes, 3kg tomatoes, lettuce, capsicums, cucumbers and the like. O added 3 large blocks of chocolate and a couple of packets of salted nuts.

TUESDAY 24 MAY     PUNGALINA

By now, I had a fairly good idea of things needed for the camp. I faxed off a query to K Mart in Mt Isa to see if they had some of the things, as they should be the cheapest source.

I faxed off a list of items to wholesalers Curreys, in Townsville, for a quote. I would need to get this approved by A, before putting in a firm order.

John sent off an email to the wine company, advising them that their large cask liners had not been up to the task of withstanding our rough roads. He did this for information for them, mainly.

The vegie garden. Beyond the side fence, the land dropped away to the river. Small structure with green cloth was the bitch cage, complete with recently dug earth! Behind that was one of the pumpkin mounds

John had suggested to O that use be made of a lot of little self-sown paw paw plants, that were springing up around the camp perimeter. He thought they could be transplanted to grow along side the house garden fence, on the river side, where there was nothing else growing. Accordingly, he started digging trenches for them.

That would be more to water!

SUNDAY 22 MAY     PUNGALINA

Our day off.

Given that I could not walk far, nor get anything other than sandal or thong on the foot, there was not much point in going exploring. So we mostly stayed at our camp, being lazy.

There was a very large fallen tree trunk on the lawn – the big tree that blew down in the last cyclone. O had left the biggest part, which would have been very hard to move, to become a rustic sitting area.

Fallen tree remains became rustic seating

SATURDAY 21 MAY     PUNGALINA

John mowed the camp lawns. It took him half a day to do that and rake fallen leaves away first. He had measured the mowing distance at 9kms of walking! It was a pity there was not a ride-on mower.

He had learned to focus very carefully on the mowing. The last time he did the lawns, at an edge by the longer grass, an irate snake appeared and struck out at the mower! It all happened too quickly for him to identify the type of snake, but now he was very cautious near the bushy edges.

As the weather started to cool down, some of the trees up here shed their leaves. As the lawns must be kept pristine, this meant an increasingly bigger raking task for John.

Leaves littering the safari camp lawns

O became very busy cleaning up the house and the old works caravan that housed the office room, a bedroom, and the bathroom/toilet. Over recent months a relationship had developed with a lady he had known, through friends, for some time. He was in love! L was coming here for her first ever visit. Much improvement was happening, fast. There were plans to fashion a wooden headboard for his bed, and a walking stick, for walking in the bush. He had plans for them to go camping out and exploring some of the property.

John discovered that cleaning up the office seemed to have meant throwing out everything in the way of untidy papers. When O was not there, John quietly rescued things like the operating manuals for the fax and printer from the burning heap.

THURSDAY 19 MAY    PUNGALINA

I had to take pain killers to sleep, last night – foot throbbed away steadily, all night. Was limping badly today, and much of the foot was blue/black. I wondered how bad it would have to get, before needing intervention? Suddenly, the reality of being at least a good day’s drive from the nearest doctor,  looms large. I didn’t think the Flying Doctor would be too happy to be called out for a sore foot, though.

It was cooling down steadily now. Days were more pleasant and the nights quite good for sleep. With (well screened) windows open at the head and foot of our bed in the van, there was a lovely through breeze.

Nights were down around 12 degrees, but the days still over 30. There was less cloud about and it was much less humid.

There was now a steady, but small, supply of eggplants and paw paws from the garden. John’s plantings were coming on. He’d rigged temporary shade over the younger plants.

Generator on trailer to power the tools. Solar panel powered the Telstra satellite dish system

O left in the late afternoon, to go and meet the supply truck at Redbank Mine. It was the second truck we’d had. He slept beside the track in his swag.

WEDNESDAY 18 MAY     PUNGALINA

I went up at the house, to do our washing in the machine that was kept on the verandah.

There was a long ironwood bench there, upended on top of another one. It had been that way ever since we’d been there. Because the support struts between its six legs were barbed wire that caught on the washing sometimes, and because there was no handy place to put the clothes basket, I decided to get John to help me lift it off and turn it right way up. As we were doing this, I lost the grip on my end and it fell on my foot – with the very sharp wooden edge across the front of the foot. Ironwood is bloody well named!

The ironwood topped table that squashed my foot

My foot hurt, hugely, for ages. I wasn’t game  to take off my sneaker and inspect the damage, because it felt like there was blood squishing around in there!

I finished the washing, limped out and hung it on the line, then drove back to our camp, where I eventually got up the nerve to take off my shoe and look at the foot. There wasn’t blood, which was good, but the foot was swollen and turning black. I suspected there might be some small bones broken. It would have to be thong only on that foot, for a while – no way would it fit in the sneaker again.

There wasn’t much I could do for the rest of the day, except feel sorry for myself, and drive back up to the house later in the day, where John helped me pick in the washing.

Rather ironically, O had commenced making a second table for the camp dining tent – using some rather rough ironwood for the top, and a metal frame for the base. The roughness didn’t matter, because it would be covered by a tablecloth. The new table, butted up against the one already in there, would enable comfortable seating for up to sixteen  diners.

Frog in rocks