I have never in my life felt such horrid heat! When I went to bed last night it was a cool 25 degrees, but by the time midnight came around it brought with it the most horrible easterly wind that came off the land and woke everyone up. The tent -- which was loudly flapping in the wind all night -- got up to 35 degrees within ten minutes. At 1:30am, after being awake for several hours, I walked up to the lodge to grab my water bottle and saw a large glowing flame burning in the distance. The fire has been smouldering since we came to Exmouth, but with all the wind the flames really picked up. Candice says it’s still at least 100km away and the Parks people are getting a satellite picture of its movement every 15 minutes, so we will have ample warning if it comes our way. There’s also a cyclone building in Darwin, north of us, but it shouldn’t be a problem if the winds remain in our favour.

By 10am the temperature was up to 48 degrees in the shade! The guides hiked Mandu Mandu Gorge at 5am and the rest of us began working at 6am. We stopped working after three hours of sluggish work. Candice and I went to the beach in the morning to collect drift wood, pebbles and shells for some projects (tent rock signs, driftwood plates, table center-pieces). The rest of the morning, Kat and I drove around in the golf buggy pretending to work hard, but we were really just testing out how comfy the new tent beds were.

At 11am everyone piled in the van and drove to the visitor centre to brush up on our facts about the reef, wildlife, plants and history of the land. It really is an amazing place with so much to learn from and about. I’ve been taking this opportunity very seriously because it really is an amazing place to work and if you dwell on the heat and the hard work too much you’ll end up with a negative attitude towards the place, which would be a shame. Woody has instead chosen to focus on the fact that we were working on a holiday (Labour Day) and in sweat-shop heat. He’s been quite the complainer today and has had an attitude about having to do so much research for his position as a guide. It frustrates me, but I’ve been trying to keep my mouth shut and my outlook positive. I don’t want him to look back and realize that he’s taken this opportunity and time for granted. He’s a smart cookie though, so I’m sure he’ll figure it out and change his attitude without me nagging him.

We did another snorkelling trip today – Lakeside. It wasn’t nearly as good as the other trips because we had to walk a fair distance to get to our starting point and I didn’t see as many creatures. The current was also very strong so I was quite tuckered out at the end. Kat and I got some cool footage with a turtle though. Even the less eventful snorkel trips are still amazing. I saw a giant cod that was at least a meter long and a big white tip reef shark that snuck up on me.

I’m going to relax tonight, have some beers and read my book. We are having fish, salad and potatoes for dinner tonight. Yum! Tomorrow is our Friday so we are going to head back to town when we finish up work. I’m hoping Woody will want to go catch some crayfish after work before we head back to town, but I have a feeling he’ll want to rush back to the air-conditioning right away. Until then I’m going to enjoy this cold beer on this hot evening. Cheers!