SATURDAY 28 MAY     PUNGALINA

Finished the shade roof today.

O seemed pleased enough with it, though now it was up he expressed some concern that the shade might be too dense. But it was all that had been available. We shall see. It certainly would  not be coming off again easily!

John and his masterpiece

We were getting brilliant sunsets every evening now. It was very pleasant, to sit out in our clearing, with our couple of nightly cans of beer and sip these, watching as the sunset developed.

FRIDAY 27 MAY     PUNGALINA

Mail plane today. The pilot did not make any adverse comments about the size of my order. However, it was minus the watermelon and 2 kg of zucchini I’d ordered. John’s plant seeds didn’t come, either, though his grass seed did.

After the garden watering – now including the new paw paws – and being distracted by the mail plane routine, it was lunch time, so we went back to the van for that.

Because John had planted the paw paws in long trenches, watering of them could be done by leaving the hose run into the trench, and going off to do something else while it filled. The water pressure in the hoses was not the greatest – gravity fed from the tank on the hill behind the machinery shed, which in turn was filled by pumping from the river.

Then it was back to the house, where we worked on the garden shelter. Progressively unrolled a section of the shade cloth, then John would nail it into place, then we would do the next bit. O’s nail gun was invaluable for this work. John had not used one before and was learning on the job. He managed to misfire it whilst doing an early part of the mesh, and nailed through his glove – fortunately between his thumb and first finger, missing the flesh. But it was a bit close and made him a lot more cautious with the gun.

OH&S would not approve!

John’s improvised stand for working on the nailing was rather precarious – boards across the top of old, rather rusty, 44 gallon drums. Very wobbly. Probably ill advised for a guy with a replaced hip. But trying to use the long ladder didn’t work, because it poked up through the roof where John wanted to put the shade cloth.

THURSDAY 26 MAY     PUNGALINA

This was the order deadline day for the next supply truck from Mt Isa, but O did not want me to put in any orders for that. He planned to have L staying here about this time, so did not want having to go pick up from the truck to interfere with the visit. We did suggest that John could go out and do that, but O did not want that either. So, we would be relying on the mail plane for any needs, that were not frozen goods, or meat.

John received an email back from the wine company. They refunded the cost of the port, which we had not expected. Very good of them.

I spent much of the day sitting out at the end of the air strip, with great lengths of shade cloth spread around me, sewing the lengths into the dimensions required for the vegie garden roof. I used a big needle that O supplied, and fishing line. The dings kept me company, and supervised.

Large scale sewing task! Dings supervising.

After I had finished that, we rolled it up and manhandled it around to one end of the vegie garden, ready to start putting up.

We managed to get part of the shade cloth roll up on to the framework, and fastened on. With only the two of us, and such a large and unwieldy roll of material, it was hard work. They were getting their money’s worth out of us!

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.