SUNDAY 4 SEPTEMBER     PUNGALINA

Worked 8 am to 10.30pm.

It was a misty morning again.

John was finding the camp cleaning up work really hard – mowing and raking. Ever since the trip back from the coast with the Daihatsu, his back had been really sore.

He refuelled Truck. Had only done 248kms, but he was starting to feel concerned that the drums of diesel may be running low – so it was wise to keep our vehicle fairly full.

I cleaned the showers and toilets and checked the tents the men would be using.

Cooked Cornies biscuits, a tiramisu, spicy pikelets. Brought a fish from the house to defrost. Made a pineapple salad.

The guests arrived mid afternoon. O brought them down to camp in the Troopy. They had brought their own beer with them – lots of it! They actually seemed quite under the weather – I think they had been refreshing themselves in flight. The one who was piloting seemed more sober though – as I would hope!

I fed them spicy pikelets for afternoon tea, got them settled in. After their flight – and after their time at Birdsville – they just wanted to laze about for the rest of the day. That suited O, who returned to his work at the house as soon as he had deposited them at camp.

I served the usual pre dinner nibbles, which they actually collected and took back to their tents.

Dinner was threadfin salmon, cooked Asian style, with rice to  which I added peas, spring onion and corn kernels; green salad, pineapple salad, with tiramisu for dessert.

The men had brightened up with their afternoon rest and spent a while sitting round the camp fire after tea. They were nice enough guys, maybe in their 30’s.

After dinner clean up, I hard boiled eggs for tomorrow. Asked O to get out from the house freezer some “fillet” steaks to defrost. Sometimes he remembered such requests, sometimes not. One of the reasons I was missing A’s presence at the house! It was just one of the hiccups to deal with because of the way the fridges and freezers were split between house and camp.

O left the camp fire fairly early and left us to chat with the visitors until they were ready for bed. I thought O really wanted to get back to his house wall building.