Friday March 12 Som dent of a social day, mixed with paper work. No precise in- formation on the Time, but the agents opine that, all going well, she could arrive here by the 24th. The Wandana agents think that ship might be here by the 31st. The strikers are allowing the Time to unload at Bowen and Townsville, but the owners will not let her leave Townsville for Cairns until she can take on more bunker coal. Looks like an end to the strike on Monday. Had morning tea with the president (McManus) and secretary (Wyer) of the Cairns Harbour Board. We are offered the use of a motor launch for work in the harbor, where I hope to collect Sargassum material for Parr. In the evening we were the guests, and George the guest speaker, at a meeting and high tea of the Legacy Club. Name of club derived from the legacy of responsibility recognized by local bodies of substantial ex-service men for the care of war widows and orphans. Each individual member looks after the affairs of two or three families. The movement started in Tasmania, took hold throughout Australia, and has recently spread to England. Saturday March 13 Only a few showers have fallen through this week and today there is a dry feeling in the air. The big rains always end about the end of March. Heavy rains could fall between now and then, but even if they do they can hardly be enough to save the north from a severe dry season. Thompson of Coen writes that rainfall there is well below average, and predicts early grass fires. A severe dry season will be against us on the peninsula. In afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Bert Hunter drove George and me out to Barron Waters, where we had afternoon tea under the trees of the rain- forest, and walked some little way up the gorge. Bob Hunter has done an enormous amount of intelligent work in developing his sylvan tea gardens. A beautiful, restful spot. Native nutmeg trees surprisingly abundant in the forest, and Hunter says the place was formerly a haunt of the nutmeg pigeon. Sunday March 14 Lunch with Mr. & Mrs. Stephens, then a drive to Pretty Beach, about 28 miles north of Cairns along the Cook Highway, in search of bats. A pretty spot, indeed! Rather steep beach of clean pale sand, edged with Casuarina trees and brushy rain-forest, and ending to the north in a headland of bare, jagged rocks. Quantities of Sargassum left on the beach by the receding tide. But no bat cave. Stephens much put out about leading us on a false trail, and Mrs. Stephens even more upset because she found she had brought everything for afternoon tea, except the tea. Finally Stephens remembered where he had seen the bats, and we drove back along the road about three miles to Hartley's Creek, had afternoon at Evan's tea house, then drove down to the beach. The bats were in a deep, narrow, upward-tapering fissure in the granite of a