121. Friday, 6 August 1948. We had a little sort of meeting this morning and came up with another time-table of sorts. It is proposed that we finish and move out of the Coen area on August 26th, but travel slowly our road to Laura. Annie River is right out of the picture, so it will work out, after leaving here, that we spend the night of the 26th at Ebagoole, the night of the 27th at Musgrave, the night of the 23th on the Hann River, where the main trail is crossed by it, and reach Laura for the night of the 29th. Our effort at the Rocky Scrub will be of two weeks duration, since we cannot leave here until Monday, the 9th, and have to be back by the evening of the 24th in order to have time enough to get ready for the trip to Laura. The Scrub trip, while still indefinite in details, will mean by truck to the Peach River (Peach Creek) where we shall set up a sub-base, the bulk of our stuff being left here at the Bend. Preliminary trail cutting and pack animals will be the method of getting into the Scrub and we shall not all be in at the same time; some collecting will be done along Peach Creek as well as in the Scrub itself. After our morning conference, most of us went in to the Race Meeting and I must confess that I found myself heartily bored. Horse-racing contains no thrill of any sort for me and the people who attended all looked rather bored. Influenza seems to have come in with the influx of out-back visitors and there was a general air of listlessness over the whole assembly. The local member of Parliament, who flew in yesterday in the hospital plane and whose presence was highly touted, failed to put in an appearance, and the staff of the hospital plane itself was doing much better business with the locals than in treating accidents on the Course. There really was nothing sufficiently spectacular to write about, perhaps because I do not care much for racing, but to me one of the surprising things of this country is the effect of the American movies. Almost everybody, white or black, who is even remotely connected with cattle or horses wears a ten-gallon hat though originally the Australian bush headgear consisted of a wide-brimmed, flat crowned thing. A telegram came in from Burns Philp, stating that out reservations on the Pioneer Star had been made but port and date of sailing are still unknown. Otherwise the day has been without event. Saturday, 7 August 1948. The mist and drizzle of rain which was with us yester- day, though I did not mention it, had gone this morning, and a furious wind has taken its place, blowing dust all over everything. George and Van have gone off to some cave somewhere in order to collect some bats, if they can; Len has gone to Coen to make arrangements for our move, which will pro- bably take place on Monday; I have started my packing for the Scrub but still have some supplies to check in and some specimens to wrap and put away. Another brown snake and a few other things, including our first frilled lizard, came in yesterday The festivities at Coen will continue over the week-end, it seems and our de parture is correspondingly uncertain. A visitor from Laura, about whom a tele- phone call to Cairns was made yesterday since she was complaining of illness and severe headaches, dies during the night. She was supposed to have been taken to the Cairns Hospital by the ambulance plane last night but the plane did not go. Presumably the member of Parliament was not ready, so the woman died. Politicians seem to be much the same, the world over. Having finished this page I must now write and make our Cooktown reservations, another mile stone.