142. Saturday, 11 September 1948. This morning. Thursday, 14 September 1948. The most noteworthy event of the day was a bath and swim in a pool up at the entrance to Parrot Creek Gorge, which may give a rough idea of the rapid tempo at which we live. The next most important is the fact that Moe has been drunk all day, and not on our rum; the only other source seems to be the preserving alcohol, so we shall send it all out with George when he moves out on Thursday. I had a fairly restful day today and made no attempt to climb the mountain; I have an idea that my mountain-climbing days are over anyway. George and Van come down tomorrow and their last few days have been about as blank as mine, except for the tun-of-the-mill stuff they got in their traps. Their hunting and jacking has produced nothing whatever the last few evenings. There are less than two weeks left now; in fact two weeks from tonight we shall be on our way down to Cairns with everything finished, rather a pleasant thought, I find. The boys are to be sent back to Thursday Island by plane and Joe will be left to his own devices in Cooktown. He has grandiose ideas, is going prospecting to the Escape River, is going to collect for the Queensland Museum, is going to plant paw-paw trees all over the Cape; though I don't know why, but it is my guess he will go on the beach at Cooktown though he did ask me to send his money in to his bank. Of course he draws cheques against it as fast as it gets there so it will be interesting to see what does happen to him but we shall never know. A mood is upon me tonight, I think; we have all had enough for the present, and need to get away from it, including Joe and the blacks. So the fact that there are only two more weeks is one to be approved. Wednesday, 15 September 1948. Today was mail day and bucked me up considerably because it meant a great amount of activity for me, in the sense of work to do and to accomplish. Also it is the sort of work, on mail days, which does not entail any damage to or pain in my foot. Amongst the mail there was a letter from Charles Wilmot, brother of the wartime British Minister of Supply, whom I met on the Marine Phoenix, informing me, having launched the Australian tour of Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh and the Old Vic Company, he had returned to England and was now back in Sydney until May. Charles told me there was a vacant bed in his apartment in Sydney and I think I shall take him up on that. I feel the need of civilized amenities. There also was word from the Protector of Abbas that Roy would be permitted to take his father, Monkey, from Wnelock back to Cowall Creek. It simply involves somehow finding a ship which will call at Portland Roads, getting our boys on that ship instead of the plane for which we had reservations, arranging for transportation for Monkey from Wenlock to Portland Roads and one or two other things. Childs play. This morning I had a heart-te-heart talk with Joe during which he told me he had been making his own grog and that any cook with a yeast bottle could do it. This afternoon, apparently finding the yeast bottle too slow, he got at the pre-serving alcohol and knocked himself out again. I went over the kitchen stores and found that we are practically out of everything, a conditions which I cannot understand as there is nobody for him to entertain or to whom he might sell the things. It will be necessary either to get a wild pig or else to purchase and kill a goat to carry us through until the new order of supplies comes up on the Jubilee Pack on Sunday. However I managed to scrape enough together to get George and Van, with their two boys, away tomorrow. All in all, it has been an active day and I enjoyed it, dragging myself out of the era of dumps in which I have struggled recently.