Day 3, July 25, Part II

Smith hopped out of bed at sun up, and was off to scan the "negs" from the day before. I got up some time later, and after tidying up the mobile research institute, went to meet her at the local conveyor of coffee and internet service, which is known in these parts as "Pearl's." Pearl's seems to be a kind of "Lord of the Flies" arrangement as there is not an adult in sight behind the counter. The young proprietors, the eldest of which could not be a day older than 14, could barely see over the counter. As I got there, they were rushing around in a frantic manor as they were being hammered by the morning rush of visitors to the park for whom coffee is an energetically pursued habit. Coffee was drunk, strategy was discussed, and logs were filed.

Back up to the Prince of Wales Hotel Hill. Scarcely had we set up the tripod before Smith was stung by a wasp. Odd for such a windy outcrop, and odder that upon being stung, she started to receive a supernatural amount of attention from all manor of flying insect. Not only determined wasps, but tiny hover flies, butterflies, and moths, began to try to land on her. This naturally prompted some cussing and stamping of feet.

It has begun to dawn on my foggy and unschooled intelligence that it is conundrum of some significant confoundation to locate and reoccupy an unmarked camera station. A cairn or stake marking the site would of course do the trick, but such a luxury is quite out of the question in our situation. There are no conveniently placed identifiable objects, and old Bert Riggall could not have been expected to communicate his precise location to an unimagined expedition from 100 years in the future. Luckily Smith has knowledge of an ingenious technique that was concisely described by A. E. Harrison in the journal Geology in 1974. The way forward is to compare distances on the old and new photograph with respect to an arbitrary axis. Anyway, this peach of a geometrical puzzle has sparked my imagination, and I find myself sitting and moving my hand up and down or in and out along imagined lines in space. I will endeavour to articulate the technique in subsequent entries.

On the way down from the hill, I was loaded down in a lop-sided way from the tripod and caught a rock with the front tire of my bicycle causing me to soar over the steering bars into a bush. The landing was among the softest that I have ever encountered, however my wrist doesn't turn the way it should today. Smith suggested, on account of her insect bites and my fall that we enjoy some iced cream at "Ye Olde Lick And Nibble,"a purveyor of sweets with a medieval theme.