Instead Of The Cypress-Pine
Scrub, The Corypha-Palm And The Casuarina Grew Here, And Invited Us To
Cool Shaded Waters; The Corypha-Palm Promised A Good Supply Of Cabbage.
We Had A Thunder-Storm From The Southward, Which Turned From The Range To
The Eastward.
The two last days were cloudless and very hot; but, on the
ranges, a cool breeze was stirring from the northward.
Nov. 30. - I wished to move my camp to a small water-hole about eight
miles east by north, which I had found yesterday; but, though I kept more
to the northward than I thought necessary, we were everywhere intercepted
by deep rocky gullies. Losing much time in heading them, I ventured to
descend one of the more practicable spurs, and, to my great satisfaction,
my bullocks did it admirably well. The valley into which I entered was
very different from these barriers; gentle slopes, covered with open
forest of silver-leaved Ironbark, and most beautifully grassed,
facilitated my gradual descent to the bottom of the valley, which was
broad, flat, thinly timbered with flooded-gum and apple-trees, densely
covered with grass, and, in the bed of the creek which passed through it,
well provided with reedy water-holes. Before I ventured to proceed with
my whole party, I determined to examine the country in advance, and
therefore followed up one of the branches of the main creek, in a
northerly direction. In proceeding, the silver-leaved Ironbark forest
soon ceased, and the valley became narrow and bounded by perpendicular
walls of sandstone, composed of coarse grains of quartz, rising out of
sandy slopes covered with Dogwood (Jacksonia) and spotted-gum.
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