Thursday, Aug. 12: This is another catch up job on journal notes. After a series of viscissitudes we have our base camp on the Peach River, under the western foot of the Dividing Range and the first party has gone across the range to the Rocky Scrub. Monday was a terrific day. Waking at small daylight, as usual, and getting out of bed right away, as I have been doing to wake our usually sozzled cook the past few days, I found old Joe had gone. He had left during the evening, after Geoff and I had walked into town to check on the truck situation and post letters, avoided us, and made a night of it. With Geoff's help in finding things, I got together a very poor breakfast then set out for town to retrieve the cook and see that the truck left on good time. Found Joe in bed in a hotel room (in one of the collection of sheds that comprise the hotel) reeking of spilled whiskey, and not quite dead drunk. Checking with Thompson and his henchman, I found that a few items bought in the store were waiting to be loaded, and that the truck was expected to start after being serviced and after a guide had been procured for the driver. Contacting Peterson to see if the horse plant had starter, as arranged, I found him making sling straps for our box loads, and sure that the horses, in charge of blackboy Willie Alf Young, would start for the Peach while the day was still young. There was delay in getting the truck ready. A blackboy guide for the truck, supposed to be provided by the police sergeant at Thompson's request, was not in sight. So I hied me to the police station and found that nothing had been said to the sergeant. Farrell, a smart man, got busy right away, and within five minutes he had arranged the loan of a boy (Tommy Fox) from Maurice Shepherd. A full hour elapsed before Tommy could be found. Then - it was about 11:45 - the driver refused to start until he had eaten lunch. We could get lunch at the hotel at noon, he said, and he would arrange with the cook for us to eat before "the mob". We sat down to eat at 12:30, and by one o'clock I had retrieved Joe from the bar and laid him out on the floor of the truck. Tommy was there with his swag and we were all ready to start when the driver announced that he had invited the cook out for the ride to the Peach. By that time I was past protest. The cook, a buxom lass from Oxfordshire (Daisy Parsons), working her way around the world, quite on the level, I believe, did not keep us waiting long. On the way out to camp I found Willie Alf Young on his way into town to buy something for his wife before leaving for the Peach. Carried him back to camp and set him about getting the horses saddled (Thompson's horse plant was camped beside us at the Bend). Was about half way through loading the truck when Petersen, Thompson's head stockman, rode up to say that the horses, which should have been away by 10 o'clock at the latest, were being mustered, all the gear was ready, and that our pack plant would travel late to reach the Peach that evening (distance supposed to be 21 miles). Finally, at 2:20, we left the Bend, and drove fast, with loud protests from Joe, beginning to recover a bit, and getting badly bumped in his nest on the tail of the truck. About 10 or 11 miles north of Coen on the "main road" we waited while Tommy found where the old road to Shepherd's battery crossed Croll Creek. The crossing was on deep sand, about 30 yards wide, and partly blocked by a big driftwood tree lying in the channel. Getting around the head of that tree, with all hands pushing and building tracks of sticks under the dual wheels of the truck, took up a good half hour. After that the real fun started. Our route lay across open (savanna-forested) country with few natural difficulties and was marked by blazed trees, blazed so long ago that most of the marks were visible as only healed scars on the bark. The only semblance of a road was at the crossings of the numerous gullies, and sometimes a horse pad which followed the old blazed track in places. Our guide did not know the