THURSDAY 1 – MONDAY 5 JUNE     LITCHFIELD

Officially winter down south. Wouldn’t know it up here. The weather was very pleasant now, and we were acclimatized, so did not feel it as all that hot – unlike the tourists.

Thursday was a long day for me. It was M’s day off, so I did not have her help in the afternoon, cleaning up the kitchen and washing the cafe’s lunch dishes.

As we got steadily busier, it became later in the afternoons before I could get to the bulk salads prep, and then the cheesecakes. It all compounded.

It was 6.45 before I finished on Thursday! Even John did not knock off until 6.30. Without M, his outside work cleaning up after bus groups took longer, too. B tended to be busy serving in the cafe so he was on his own out there.

There was now a helicopter in place, on a cleared area a bit away from the cafe buildings. It was there to do joy flights over the Park. The pilot was accommodated in an old donga up behind our van area. He was getting a few customers each day.

I found it got a bit noisy at times and the chopper stirred up a lot of dust. But it was an added tourist attraction, I guess.

Sunday saw a minor disaster in the cafe. The electric grater broke down! Given the very large amounts of grated carrot needed each day, I hoped it would soon be fixed, or a replacement bought. Using the old stock standard circular metal hand grater was a royal pain in the butt – and on the fingers too, when some skin invariably got grated. It also added to the prep time needed, greatly. It would have to go to Darwin with boss, during the week, for repair.

In the event, a special part was needed from “down south”. This took almost two months to arrive. Boss told me that NT stood for – Not Today, Not Tomorrow, Not Tuesday, Not Thursday, Next Train, Next Truck……and that was to prove true, so often.

On Monday after work, John and M again went off to bowls at Batchelor. I didn’t finish till 6pm, so had another solitary evening at our camp.

John put 25 litres of fuel in Truck at Batchelor – $1.58cpl.