ruined by rain, but the other half put 6.21. P. 17 us in a much stronger position than formerly. We don't quite understand a radio in which only "3 bags were dropped" since we have apparently 14 already. The bags too are 50-60 lbs - Willis says we have now recovered nearly 600 lbs of rice in good condition. Thursday, July 16th - What a day! Up at 5.30 getting ready to go. Final communication with Port Moresby at 6.30 a.m. We had a fair night with little rain and we left camp at 7.50. Had to make a few changes in the carriers around at Iralion village where we stopped to give everyone a spell, and to fix Healy and stock some bearings and also a number of photographs. Left Iralion village at 11.10 down the cliffy track, which I had climbed with my squad of radio packers only 6 days earlier, down through the abandoned gardens to the Luap (Palmer) River, which became because of the noise it was making we feared might be too deep to cross. After the past week's bad weather we had fort reason to suspect it. The river was at least a foot higher than it was when I forded it, and the place where I had crossed proved impractical. We sought over the river at a relatively quiet spot and we started cutting track upstream in search of some place where a_ crossing might be tried. When a number of boulders showed we felled a great tree on our side. Its branches locked any the stones + held. That carried us a third of the way. Next the boys went right deep in the swift current built out an sort of trestle bridge for another 15' feet beyond the tree. Indudi (Willis's boy) next managed to cross with an_ using a pole to hold down against the current, and fell another huge tree from the other side. There yet remained about twenty feet of water + that was finally bridged with a long slender tree trunk. That left the track end under water and we hurried to secure it with inclined forked poles.