Thursday, 22 July 1948. The Fisher (Doug) family arrived over fairly early this morning and shortly afterwards the northbound plane passed overhead. We learned that there had been some minor breakdown at Townsville, enough to hold them there over night, and another plane had left Brisbane early this morning, taken over the mail and passengers and con- tinued the run. She had to get to Thursday Island, make a quick turn-around and get back today, which left little time for answering the mail that had come in. Nothing of interest came in from Burns, Philp and I am left in the air on a great many subjects. A letter did come, however, saying that the Pioneer Star, U.S. Lines, would leave either Brisbane or Sydney eastbound about "mid- October" and did we want passages on her. I wrote back immediately, the only letter I was able to get away in reply to the mail, making reservations on the ship for us all. She will dock at New York but I do not know the date or the ports she will call at, en route. Tonight two men from the Main Roads Camp came up to bid us good-bye and somehow Joe has managed to get himself foully drunk again. It is becoming rather too much of a habit again and I am afraid he may be getting himself into trouble unless he pulls himself together. There is also the question of whether he can pull himself together. A large quantity of cases and boxes went out by Doug. Fisher, a total of twenty-nine, as I said last night, I think, which leaves us pretty well cut down in our gear. We should be able to make the Coen and Cooktown trips in comparative ease. Up to the time of writing, our transport for tomorrow, Hughie Fisher of Wenlock, has not yet arrived. He said either tonight or early tomorrow morn- ing, and there is nothing to worry about yet. Friday, 23 July 1948. Our Wenlock-Coen transportation has failed us and now 4 P.M. there is little chance of him arriving and less of our getting away tonight, even if he did. We can only hope that he gets here in time for an early start tomorrow, but there is now not much chance of going to Coen before the end of the month. Although we want to do, and no doubt shall do, some collecting in Wenlock, we were anxious to get to Coen and out of it again to the nearby scrub as fast as we can. The Coen Races start on the 5th of August, and are famous in their way, in that horses from all the ranches and stations on the Peninsula arrive, hundreds of whites and blacks come in and there is a state of jollification that lasts for a week. Normally there is a population of about twenty-five in Coen but all the visitors would certainly want to call on us and pay their respects and there would be a week completely lost, to say nothing of the in- roads on our rations. We shall still try to get out to the scrub before the big time starts and we have several localities which can be considered as in the Coen area, which we must work. Since we now know definitely, more or less, our sailing date, we can calculate our time and have agreed that everything must be finished by October 1st, including the Cooktown and Mount Finnegan work Joe was in bad shape this morning, neither feet nor brain being able to work properly. It may not all be due to drink and his health may not be too good. There is no doubt that the quality of the food is falling off but he cannot be blamed for that since many of our necessities are missing, partly due to errors in B-P's shipments and partly because the stuff is at Coen wait- ing for us. We shall see what happens.