151. Monday, 27 September 1948. The remainder of this journal can hardly be con- sidered as expeditionary material, I am afraid. There may be a few observations of interest but in general I suspect that a series of farewells cannot be of any particular interest to anybody at all. Dan and Len left this morning and got away from Cooktown promptly, their plane rising and crossing above the Endeavour River about 7:45; They probably will have their breakfast in Cairns. George and Van came in during the morn- ing and the bulk of the freight has been packed and is ready for shipment, the small balance remaining being an easy job for tomorrow. The evening was devoted to another party at the Royal Sovereign, as amusing- as its predecessors have been; but in all those things there is little that can appeal to anybody else who may read this. I do not want to close it up yet because there may be subjects that will bear repeating later on, but my entries will probably not be daily items from now on. Tuesday, 28 September 1948. Everything was set aboard the Merinda before 11 A.M. this morning, I paid our various bills, hotel, Lewis, passages and freights and so on in the afternoon and with the accomplishment of that, our business in Cooktown came to an end. However that is only business and the friendships I have made here I shall cherish for a long time. I have been [illegible] accepted open-heartedly and since I like so many of the people so much, I feel somewhat proud over that. Old Dave Tammy Rowbottom, proprietor of the West Coast, made a special visit to his arch-competitor, the Royal Sovereign, this evening, just to say goodbye to me. The post-master, Tom, did his best rendering of Paddy McGinty's Goat for me; Gordon McDonald, a really accomplished pianist, provided his music all through the evening, and I feel I am leaving real friends. We went aboard the Merinda during the night as she sails at 5 A.M. and it seemed better to keep our sleep as much in one piece as possible, but George and Van got there before I did. Among our fellow passengers are the survivors of the wreck mentioned a few days back, and some other people with whom I have become well acquainted. We should have a pleasant trip down and the wreck survivors have laid in a specially large quantity of buns and hard boiled eggs, to include our party - we hear food is not too plentiful on the Merinda. I have become well acquainted with the wreck folks and remember now that the girl of the party was at Cairns with her mother when we were there in February; she was then just about double the size she is now; she still shows the effect of the privations during their overland trip. My list of things to be done in Cairns has assumed huge proportions and time is going to be at something of a premium when we get there; it will be too late tomorrow to do much after our arrival at Cairns. Wednesday, 29 September 1948. The trip south from Cooktown was quite a delight and we all enjoyed it and its freedom. I got on board about 1 A.M., George and Van having boarded the Merinda a while earlier, and turned in until we were waked at 4:45 by the rest of the passengers com- ing on board, including our refugee friends. It was dark, of course, until long after we had left Cooktown astern of us but we could see the loom of the mountains to the west of us. It was about 11 A.M. when we came abreast of Mount Finnegan, and shortly after that we stopped at the mouth of the Bloomfield River to take aboard my old friend, Lady Bissett. We stopped also at Cape Tribulation and took on a load of fruit, but in between those whort calls most of us dozed, ate hard boiled eggs and read and gossiped. I dug out maps to get the refugees to show their route and found that I had been mis- formed previously and they were nowhere near Port Steventon. The overland course they followed was about the only thing they could do under the circumstances. They had a very hard trip and, I think were lucky to get out as well as they