SUNDAY 31 JULY      PUNGALINA

Worked 6.30am till 10pm. We were starting to feel quite tired.

Breakfast was as usual. The couple man wanted a cooked breakfast, so I cooked slices of ham with creamed corn on toast for him.

Again it was a busy rush to get the groups off – the men with their smoko, and the couple and O with sandwiches, biscuits, cake, fruit, smoko needs, drinks and water. It was the same sandwich fillings as yesterday – hard to think of other fillings that would keep without going too soggy and without disintegrating over the rough tracks.

Cooked some bread rolls. Made a bean salad. Finished off the gazpacho with some fresh chopped cucumber and capsicum. Made a fruit salad.

The survey men’s lunch was plates of cold meats and salad, including the bean salad.

O was being very good at remembering to bring my frozen meat requirements for the day – with A to jog his memory! Today I needed chicken breasts from the freezer.

Prepared the usual nibbles for the late afternoon. Served chilled gazpacho with rolls, followed by Asian style chicken breasts with oven baked potato and a sauteed mix of zucchini and carrot sticks. Dessert was fruit salad, served with little wedges of hedgehog.

We were kind of working ourselves into a routine again, but it was still all go in the kitchen. I was not sure which was harder: the pressure of larger guest numbers, as was the case with A’s party, but which was only a few nights. Or the pressure of extended stays, with fewer numbers. The latter certainly needed a greater variety of menu, and a constant keeping up of the biscuit and cake supplies.

Skunge dingo had been spending quite a lot of time around the camp, and cosying up to John. She was used to spending all her time with Beau and now that Beau was busy with her puppies, I thought Skunge was feeling lonely.

SATURDAY 30 JULY     PUNGALINA

Worked 6.30am till 10pm.

I made the usual breakfast. The couple man wanted eggs and bacon as well.

It was quite a flurry to get the lunches and smokos done in time. The men’s smoko was biscuits, date loaf. I made sandwiches for the couple and O – egg and lettuce, ham, cheese and celery. Added biscuits, raspberry slices, fruit cake. Had to make sure they had a water container, and a smaller one with the wife’s water, the tea and coffee makings for smoko, fruit boxes and fruit.

Once they had set off, I tidied the tents. A cleaned the showers and toilets.

Made bread rolls, gazpacho soup for chilling, likewise cucumber soup. Cooked a carrot and ginger cake and a double batch of Cornies biscuits. Made pannacottas.

Made the survey men’s lunch – open sandwiches, using leftover cold roast beef as I had done before, with a variety of salad makings. It could be relied on to present well.

I made a batch of hedgehog. Trimmed the steaks for tonight. I had asked O to bring me some reasonably tender ones, this morning – hoped he’d managed the tender part! Did the other dinner prep.

Made the usual assortment of pre-dinner nibblies – really only for the couple, as the survey men tended to wait for dinner.

This was cold cucumber soup and little bread rolls, steak in green peppercorn and brandy sauce, with oven baked potato and green salad. Dessert was pannacottas with berry coulis – mashed tinned raspberries and strawberries.

There was no time for resting on these days. A came to help for some of the time and did cleaning and some kitchen hand work, which I really appreciated. But I really missed M’s help – she tended to show more initiative.

Again, our couple stayed up late, with him doing most of the talking. I could tell that O was itching to go back to the house, but he had to stay and do the expected host thing. I could not close up the kitchen till they had gone to bed, in case they wanted late drinks and the like.

THURSDAY 28 JULY     PUNGALINA

Today, we worked from 6am to 9.30pm. It was still very dark when I headed for the kitchen tent!

Breakfast was the usual range of tinned fruit, cereals, toast, and I cooked bacon, eggs and tomato.

The men took some Anzac biscuits and buttered date loaf with them, for morning tea.

I made a raspberry shortcake slice – from a packet mix, two pull apart bread loaves flavoured with cheese and herbs.

The men came back to camp for lunch. They had the helicopter in a cleared area beside the airstrip, near where their fuel drums had been put. They used their vehicle to ferry themselves between camp and the airstrip, so they were independent of our transport.

Lunch was chilled carrot soup, then bread pull aparts with choices of cheese spread, ham slices, flavoured tuna – they could make up their own choices. Then there was the raspberry slice and fruit for afters.

After the lunch clean up, I made an apricot jelly, for tomorrow, a cannellini bean spread, and cooked up some eggplant, for nibbles. There was quite a bit of prep to do for tea.

Pre-dinner snacks tonight were salted peanuts, celery pieces stuffed with cream cheese, kabana, some roasted capsicum strips from a jar, and olives.

Tea was sausages in gravy, a mash of potato and parsnip, a bake of tomato and onion, and sauteed strips of zucchini. Dessert was heated Apple Danish ( frozen, came on the last supply truck) and cream.

Sad news today, from boss A, to O. The Piper Chieftain plane, that had flown his group here, was no more. It was written off in a crash in Victoria, on Monday. Apparently a new pilot he had hired was doing his first charter flight, did something wrong, and the plane ran off the runway and into paddocks. The three passengers were shaken but not seriously injured. The pilot was no longer working for the company! But A was sad – he had been really attached to that plane.

O left in the night, to drive out to Wollogorang to meet the supply truck.