SATURDAY 20 AUGUST     PUNGALINA

Worked 6.30am to 9.30pm.

Usual breakfasts – but cooked bacon and eggs for the two men.

The two tour ladies decided to stay an extra night, instead of leaving today.

O planned to have the guests out for a full day. The two men would be out doing their investigations. So I packed sandwich lunches for all, and well as goodies for two smokos to go too.

I was able to have a fairly well paced day, with no guests in camp – as well as a leisurely shower! Had to do a run up to the house to collect foods from the freezer.

Defrosted French sticks from the freezer and turned them into garlic bread for tea. Made a mango cheesecake, coleslaw and a pineapple salad.

Tea was chilled zucchini soup with garlic bread. There were BBQ’d sausages and meat patties that I’d made earlier, two-potato chippies baked in the oven, the salads, with the cheesecake to follow.

The camp fire session finished a bit earlier tonight.

FRIDAY 19 AUGUST     PUNGALINA

Worked 6.30am till 10.30pm.

I set out the usual breakfast arrangements. No one wanted cooked food, so I was pleased. The group was all out for morning smoko, so I sent out with them Anzac biscuits, coffee and fruit cakes, and muesli bars.

Mail plane day – A and W dealt with that. A brought my supplies down to camp.

After cleaning up from breakfast, I made a batch of Cornies biscuits, a bean salad, a batch of orange and poppyseed muffins, and prepared salad and meat lunch plates, using cold roast beef and tinned ham as the meats.

As the weather was hotting up, I thought the guests would need somewhat lighter meals than earlier in the season. I followed the salad plates with melon slices and the usual apple/orange offerings.

The group came back for a later lunch. On such days, I prepared a lunch plate for O too, though sometimes he would just drop the guests off and go back to the house – for a break?

Today, after lunch, he had to take the two men out to look at possible Leichhardt localities. They took their own vehicle, following the way he led them. He trusted them to be able to find their own way back, when ready. The other four guests had a lazy afternoon at camp, some of it spent sitting in the creek.

The oasis of the camp

Late in the afternoon, O returned and collected them, plus nibbles and eskies of drinks that I had prepared during the afternoon, to go to the Escarpment for pre-dinner drinks and to watch the sunset.

Through the afternoon, I finalized the soup by adding cream, prepared steaks with peppercorns, prepped potatoes, made a green salad, made a fruit salad, whipped cream. Made curried zucchini soup.

When I knew in advance that O planned an Escarpment sunset watch, with consequent late dinner time, the meal and its timing could be adjusted to suit. But it was not easy when he made such a decision at the last minute, as sometimes happened, and something was cooking for dinner that would not be enhanced by cooking for an extra hour, or more!

Tonight’s dinner was chilled carrot soup with heated pre-bake rolls (I had a couple of packs in the freezer); brandy pepper steaks, baked potato with sour cream, green salad, followed by fresh fruit salad and cream.

There was another late camp fire session. John and I were finding talking to the journalist really interesting, given John’s link to the Leichhardt saga.

THURSDAY 18 AUGUST     PUNGALINA

Worked 7am to 10.30pm.

The couple arrived early, having flown in. So morning tea was needed after their arrival – just a defrosted coffee cake from the freezer, and a batch of freshly made scones.

After they were settled in, O took them off sightseeing.

Through the morning, I hard boiled eggs, made potato salad, made the aforementioned scones, marinated chunks of beef for tonight’s roast, cooked a batch of Anzac biscuits. Made up four plates of salad and cold meats for lunch, using defrosted cooked chicken breasts, from freezer, and tinned ham.

We  settled in the tour two, who drove in and arrived late morning.

There was a rather funny event whilst John was showing them around the camp. They were really hot, so waded into the camp creek, to cool off a bit, without first asking if that was alright – which, of course, it normally would be.  One of the women was about knee deep, when John said in a very loud and stern voice: “Get out of the creek, NOW”. She turned to look at him, and he repeated it. She waded out, clearly wondering what she had done wrong – whereupon, John pointed out the large black headed python that was swimming up to where she had been. He hadn’t wanted to scare her, in the water in case she panicked and froze. She forgave him!

Pool where the python was swimming

Served lunch. Organized afternoon smokos to go out with O and the guests for another round of sight seeing. Cleaned up from lunch. Made pannacottas and a batch of carrot soup.

I put the meat on to roast at 2pm. It always needed long, slow, roasting to tenderize it as much as possible. Made Yorkshire Pudding batter. Prepared the vegies and put them on to cook at 5pm.

Set up the dining tent for seven. O would eat with the guests.

The journalist men arrived, in their own vehicle,  and John settled them in.

I prepared the usual array of pre-dinner nibbles.

Served tea of roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding muffins, roast onions, potatoes, pumpkin, peas and gravy, followed by pannacottas with berry sauce. Coffee and cheeses were had around the camp fire.

With three diverse groups, previously unknown to each other, conversation was lively and interesting.

MONDAY 15 AUGUST    PUNGALINA

The morning was really misty, with quite a heavy dew. This made spiders’ webs in the bushes and grass, really stand out. It was quite eerie, really.

Although silence was the norm for so much of the time, it had a different quality when it was misty.

I went up to the house and did an unpack and inventory of the freezer that was supposedly designated for camp provisions. I had noticed, over the past few weeks, that some of the cakes and breads that I’d cooked in slow times, in order to get a bit ahead for guest times, had disappeared! I needed the security of these stocks, not so much for guests we had decent advance notice about, but the ones who booked from places like Adels Grove, to arrive next day!

Found I had two apple coffee cakes, a zucchini cake, a sultana cake, two lots of muffins,  two French sticks. There were four loaves of sliced bread frozen, some pork and lamb chops, kabana, sausages and a couple of frozen chooks. In the fridge were reasonable quantities of cheeses and salami.

I felt a bit better after that stock take.

I faxed the weekly plane order to Tennant Creek. It was considerably larger than usual and would be really pushing the limits of pilot tolerance! We were expecting three lots of guests before the next supply truck top up, so I was relying on the plane supplies.

There were fifteen different types of fruit and vegies in the order alone, though the heaviest single item was 5kg of potatoes. 10 litres of long life milk also added considerable weight. Fortunately, although there were a lot of other items, none was individually too heavy.

O arrived back in the afternoon. He did not seem terribly happy to be back! We stayed out of the way at camp, and left it to A and W to update him on things.

FRIDAY 12 AUGUST     PUNGALINA

We worked 7am until 10pm. The day passed much as yesterday with the guests.

Breakfast was the same as yesterday.

It was mail plane day. A brought down the camp provisions from the plane order. Yet again, I put aside my weekly newspaper until I had some spare time to read it!

I cooked roti breads for lunch and served those with a curried egg spread, mashed tuna, plus a mixture of ham, cream cheese and pineapple. Sides were coleslaw and a bean salad I quickly made up.

Prepared a mix of the usual pre-dinner nibbles.

Tea was a bit of a departure from the normal menu items. The normal meat supplies were getting a bit low, especially in packs that would serve just two guests. There was a chunk of corned silverside in the freezer, that had come on the last truck, so I cooked that, with onion sauce, a mash of potato and parsnip, and sauteed sticks of carrot and zucchini. It looked colourful! The meal ended with a coffee liqueur mousse.

Being their last night, the couple felt like sitting and chatting around the fire a bit longer than before. They had been really easy to look after, for which I was grateful.

THURSDAY 11 AUGUST     PUNGALINA

We worked 6.30am to 9.45pm.

Breakfast was the usual offerings, along with cooked bacon, egg and tomato.

The guests went off with John for the morning, with smoko I’d made up of biscuits and cake.

They were interested in looking at the sights, not in fishing.

Grevillea flower

I got salad and cold meat plates ready for lunch, again. Cooked bread rolls.

When the party was out again, in the afternoon, I made pannacottas and did other dinner prep.

Waterhole on nearby Karns Creek

There were the usual pre-dinner nibbles.

Tea was cold carrot and ginger soup, with bread rolls. There was pan fried steak with green peppercorn and brandy sauce, oven baked potato, green salad. Dessert was pannacottas with berry coulis.

We had the camp fire going again, and sat round chatting with the guests over coffee.