37. Thursday, 25 March 1948. The day was fairly active in the assembling and packing of equipment for Speewah Camp and we have an inordinate amount of stuff, considering the fact that we shall be back here on Monday. However, an extra man is joining us, making it seven and we are providing the food for all hands so we shall come back lighter than we set out. Latest developments in our main journey are good but again hinge on the Townsville situation. The B-P man at that town telephoned that he had been on board Time and had been unable to locate our cargo, but there was still a lot of Townsville stuff not yet unloaded. The wharfies are stringing the job out as far as it will go, particularly with their extra "stench pay" and it was to be expected that they would not finish the job before the Easter holi- days set in. Also the report given to me only yesterday that there would be no trouble rebunkering has now been replaced by the statement that there will be a great deal of trouble. To set against all that, there is a truck coming by road from Townsville on Wednesday night, if our baggage can be found and loaded on the truck, and the Yalata is scheduled to leave for Thursday Island about the Saturday following so there is a faint possibility that we may be able to get away about the end of next week. Arthur and Mrs. Taylor came down from Mossman for the evening, and had dinner with us at the hotel. They have just left and we are getting ready to turn in ourselves. The weather has been stifling again the last couple of days; the Museum, which is our workshop, is like a Turkish bath and sweat ran down my body in streams all day, while I was working there. The weather add- ed to the uncertainty of everything makes the whole situation that much more trying on all hands. Len is still limping from the tumble he took during the Gorge Camp and complains that the pain is moving down his leg. I hope there is nothing seriously wrong. We depart for Speewah about 9 A.M. tomorrow. March Friday, 26/1948. Gordon Stevens and Alf Reed called for us about o (sic) A. M. this morning and we started first for the Museum to load gear, and then set out along the Kuranda-Mareeba road over the range. After about two hours driving we turned off the good Bitumen road onto a bush track and ran into trouble with the light car in which Ernie and Mrs. Stevens were travelling. They had to get up a steep gully and managed it at the cost of a hole punctured in the radiator, which meant filling up with water every ten minutes or so. Speewah is a clearing of several acres cut out of the deep forest and a house stands there, built on stilts about ten feet high. The owner, Mr. Beavers, has about five head of cattle, horses, chickens and ducks at a lit- le stream, called either the Munonga or Upper Clohesy, runs near the house. We separated into parties, some being well-equipped and others ill; I was one of the latter, of course, and went out with Van, later separating from him to search for death adders, which are said, with the usual Austra- lian exaggeration, to be plentiful. The only thing I could find worth writ- ing about was a scorpion, against whose whole tribe I have a grudge since one stung me on the Boraima trip. The other parties got nothing at all, and Van who set a line of perhaps thirty traps, found them all untouched his night round. This is said to be native cat, the striped variety whose