The
day was windy, sand-dusty, and disagreeable. One blast of wind blew my
last thermometer, which was hanging on a sapling, so violently to the
ground that it broke.
Mr. Tietkens had been using a small pair of bright steel plyers. When
the endearing natives were gone it was discovered that the plyers had
departed also; it was only Christian charity to hope that they had NOT
gone together. It was evident that Mr. Gosse must have crossed an
eastern part of Lake Amadeus to get here from Gill's Range, and as he
had a wagon, I thought I would be so far beholden to him as to make
use of his crossing-place.
We left the Rock on the 23rd, but only going four miles for a start,
we let the horses go back without hobbles to feed for the night. Where
the lake was crossed Mr. Gosse had laid down a broad streak of bushes
and boughs, and we crossed without much difficulty, the crossing-place
being very narrow. Leaving the dray track at the lower end of King's
Creek of my former journey, we struck across for Penny's Creek, four
miles east of it, where the splendid rocky reservoir is, and where
there was delicious herbage for the horses. We had now a fair and
fertile tract to the River Finke, discovered by me previously, getting
water and grass at Stokes's, Bagot's, Trickett's, and Petermann's
Creeks; fish and water at Middleton's and Rogers's Pass and Ponds.
Thence down the Palmer by Briscoe's Pass, and on to the junction of
the Finke, where there is a fine large water-hole at the junction.
