Me to a large creek coming from the south-west
and west-south-west, with fine Casuarinas fringing its banks and forming
a dark tortuous line amongst the light green foliage of the trees on the
neighbouring flats. About six miles lower down, it was joined by the
scrub creek on which we were encamped.
The sandy bed of the creek was entirely dry, and we must have encamped
without water after a long and fatiguing ride, had not a heavy
thunder-shower supplied us; we caught the rain in our pannikins as it
dropt from our extended blankets.
The thunder-storm had passed, and the sun had set, when Brown, my
blackfellow, suddenly threw back the blanket under which we sat, and
pointed out to me a fine comet in a small clear spot of the western sky.
I afterwards learned that this comet had been observed as early as the
1st December; but our constant travelling in level forest land had
prevented us from seeing it before. The creek received the appropriate
name of "Comet Creek."
Dec. 29. - Following the creek down, we found water in chains of ponds,
and watercourses coming from a belt of scrub occupying the ground between
the creek and the mountains.
