Still writing most horribly after the event – today being Friday – and have had to be orientated with the help of Kath’s own diary and Mary’s log.

We were woken as usual by the sun and the flies – most insidious little flies here – really insidious because they have all the power and sting of a March fly and are about half the size.

Straight after breakfast we drove back the odd mile to the Cemetery, which we covered in about the same time it had taken the [Donds?] bus that had passed us earlier that morning. The next stop was Larrimah where we had not a beer, but a lemonade, followed by a shower, (not as directed by the barman, in the Men’s where there was from the sounds of things already a man, but in the “Reserved for Boarders” women’s bathroom) – hard water but utterly blissful nonetheless – We really seem to be living that the moment from beer to beer and from shower to shower. We made a swift return after half a mile and I collected my watch from the windowsill – neglecting however to pick up my lipstick from the handbasin.

Our next stop was enforced and at first a bit worrying. We became suddenly aware of a loud [bang?] sounding like a flat, but the wheel was not pulling and when we got out and looked, the tyres were up. We resumed travel but still with the [bump?] which seemed to be right under the floorboards. Began to have real horrors then and visualised all sorts of horrible things happening to the diff or big ends or some such. Then just as Kath and Mary were beginning to think of flying to Melbourne while I was contemplating the possibility of finding employment at Larrimah, some bright spark noticed that although we had no flat we had one tyre with a huge [mimays?] on it side and canvas showing through on the little fringe - must have been the nearest thing to a blowout that ever happened. Vast relief all round and we changed the wheel – putting us at one back to our pre-Larrimah bath state.

But only a few miles further on the nicest and most miraculous thing happened. We found Eyebrows tearing along the road towards us and then Bill [Gartner?] leant out and said, “would you kids like a cold beer?” Bill of course had been looking out for us since Tennants – he had left Alice on Sunday, done a day’s business and stopped for some shooting and wondered where the we had got to.

We had some pistol practice and then toasted each other with brandy on the rocks (far nicer than rum ditto) and departed on [ranom?] ways. Us with two De Gray type comics donated by Bill’s friend.

We had lunch at the Daly Waters turn off and then descended on the Chadders where we had a very pleasant interlude. After we had attended to our inevitable washing, we learnt from Betty over afternoon tea that [they?] like D/Waters surprisingly enough – life seems to be one long beery party, far more hectic than Darwin. Occasioned mostly by passer by though. In fact, we were lucky to get away at 5 o’clock as we did - especially since it was Ron’s birthday.

We decided it might be rather a bright idea if we could have a famous Renner Springs steak for breakfast. Bill had said have excellent [thing?] [there?] and that we could have a simply wonderful shower there. So we drove till dark, had a swift soup and carried on to camp by the road about 30 miles from Renner Springs (Mary is saying “Stop. Stop. We won’t have time for a shower.” So I will.)