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After passing a sandstone ridge, I came to a creek, which went to the north-west, and which was supplied with water by the late thunder-showers. It was bounded on both sides by sandstone ridges, whose summits were covered with scrub and Acacia thickets; and by grassy slopes and flats bearing narrow-leaved Ironbark and Bastard-box.
In a short time, we reached an open Bricklow scrub containing many dry water-holes, which, farther on, united into a watercourse. We passed a creek flowing to the eastward to join the Mackenzie, and continued our route through patches of Bricklow scrub, alternating with Bastard-box forest, and open Vitex scrub, in which the Moreton Bay ash was very plentiful.
The country was very broken, but openly timbered, and occasionally of a most beautiful character; but frequently interrupted by patches of miserable scrub. Having in our progress brought Mount Phillips to bear south-west and south, we entered a fine open Bastard-box country, with slight undulations, and which seemed to extend to Peak Range.
The scrub approached very near to the banks of the river, and, where it receded, a disagreeable thicket of Bastard-box saplings filled almost the whole valley: fine lagoons were along the river, frequently far above its level; the river itself divided into anabranches, which, with the shallow watercourses of occasional floods from the hills, made the whole valley a maze of channels, from which we could only with difficulty extricate ourselves.
Calvert and Charley accompanied me in an excursion to the W.N.W., but, having crossed some ridges and coming to scrub, we took a direction to the northward. Fine Bastard-box flats and Ironbark slopes occupy the upper part of Newman's Creek.
In passing out of the belt of scrub into the openly timbered grassy flat of the river, Brown descried a kangaroo sitting in the shade of a large Bastard-box tree; it seemed to be so oppressed by the heat of the noonday sun as to take little notice of us, so that Brown was enabled to approach sufficiently near to shoot it.
The first two hours of the day were cloudy, but it cleared up and became very hot; the atmosphere was hazy and sultry; cumuli with undefined outlines all round the horizon: wind from south-west and south. I travelled west by north about eight miles, along the foot of Bastard-box and silver-leaved Ironbark ridges.
We passed over some very fine flats of Bastard-box, silver-leaved Ironbark, and white gum, with a few scattered Acacia-trees, remarkable for their drooping foliage, and mentioned under the date 22nd December. Farther on, we came again to scrub, which uniformly covered the edge of the high land towards the river.
The small orange-tree, which we had found in blossom at the Condamine, was setting its fruit. Farther on, the dense Bricklow scrub compelled me to approach the banks of the creek, where we travelled over fine flats, but with a rather sandy rotten soil. The apple-tree, flooded-gum, silver-leaved ironbark, and the bastard-box grew on the flats and on the ridges.
The character of the country continued the same; the same Ironbark forest, with here and there some remarkably pretty spots; and the same Bastard-box flats, with belts of scrub, approaching the river.
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