Saturday, 20 March 1948. The morning was filled with odd jobs, refer to be completed before the town closed down for the weekend and in the afternoon Van and I spent our time at the Museum, the place which has been loaned to us for storage and working, while Len and George drove out with Gil Bates to look over the land in the neighborhood of Bellenden Kerr, a mountain to the south of us. Van and I occupied ourselves for the bulk of the afternoon and I, finishing first, returned to the hotel to find a placard on the elevator asking that it be not taken to the second, or top, floor, where our rooms are. On inquiring I was informed that a wedding was to be held on the first floor. (I had better explain here that the floors run Ground, First and Second) and that when the elevator stuck, it always did so at the second floor. To circumvent that, the thing was not to be taken that high until after the ceremony. I bathed and cleaned up, by which time Van had come in, and we went down to the first floor for a drink. That was the scene of action, and the bridal party was gathered there, the bride dressed in a vivid crimson net gown. Being Saturday, the Cairns string orchestra was playing on the landing between the ground and first floors and signals were passed to them to play the appropriate music for the wedding in between other numbers rendered for the dinner on the ground floor. Van and I sat sipping our drinks and watching in the lounge on the first floor, amid wedding visitors all dressed up with hats on, when the first break occurred, in the shape of a man in a bathrobe with a towel around his neck, who arrived in our midst looking for the shower room. A little later "Here comes the Bride" struck up" and the wedding guests rose and stood still, only to be parted by the same man, returning wringing wet from his shower. Then it was found that signals had been crossed anyway and the bride had not moved from her post behind the elevator shaft. That ended the ceremony for us and we went down for dinner. In the evening we went to the movies and saw "Appointment with Crime" and "Home, sweet homicide", altogether a pretty bloody evening. Some time during our absence Len and George returned, not too impressed with Bellenden Kerr, so the coming week is still uncertain. For future reference it might be as well to bring the strike situation in here, as far as we know it. The S.S. Time is still at Townsville and only a part of her cargo for that port has been unloaded. New South Wales is now on strike in sympathy with Queensland, but we need concern ourselves only with the latter. At the best possible, Time could not reach Cairns until the end of this week, and in that event would arrive at Easter, during which period Australia closes from Thursday until the following Tuesday. No work could be done during that period and the only hope, which is not even a faint chance, is that our freight might be unloaded prior to Thursday. Then we, at least, could get on with our repacking. This situation also brings up the long range effect of this on the expedition. Money is being used up - we have applied for reservations homeward for October but it is conceivable that lack of cash could force a return before then. On the other hand, if cash holds out we should put in this lost three weeks at the end of the trip. Things can simply be said to be remarkably indefinite. Our results, with the sketchy equipment available to us, so far have been good, but we are all champing at the bit and desperately anxious to get to the right place and job.