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Updated: July 29, 2025
From thence to camp, 7 miles, was over saline plains, intersected by belts of bloodwood, tea-tree, mangrove, nuptle, grevillea, dogwood, applegum, silky oak, and pandanus. A second creek was crossed at 11 miles, similar to the first.
The nature of the soil was easily distinguished by its vegetation: the Bastard box, and Poplar gum grew on a stiff clay; the narrow-leaved Ironbark, the Bloodwood, and the Moreton Bay ash on a lighter sandy soil, which was frequently rotten and undermined with numerous holes of the funnel ant.
By the side of the little creek to the North-West of the hill a bloodwood tree has been marked on one side with the number of Mills's camp, and on the other with a record of the objects of Hubbe's expedition, S.R. standing presumably for "Stock Route." The flat on which these trees are growing is, in my opinion, a very likely spot for finding water by sinking.
In the more sandy tracts of bloodwood forest, grew the Nonda, the Pandanus, and the apple-gum. The shallow creek was surrounded by a scrub of various myrtaceous trees, particularly Melaleucas. The creek afterwards divided into water-holes, fringed with Stravadium, which, however, lower down gave way to dense belts of Polygonum.
They are so boggy that in some cases, though perhaps only eighteen inches wide, they had to be headed before the cattle could pass. A thick vine scrub was then passed, when the party emerged on to some open ridges of red sandy soil, timbered with bloodwood, stringy-bark, and nonda.
After a graceful swoop down to the tips of a low-growing bush, he alighted on the dead branch of a bloodwood 150 yards or so away, and, with the help of a telescope, his occupation was revealed he was greedily tearing to pieces a wriggling snake, gulping it in three-quarter-yard lengths. Here was the reason for the trustfulness and respect of the little birds.
Extensive flats of rotten ground, but beautifully clothed with tufts of grass, openly timbered with Moreton Bay ash and flooded-gum, ascend into gentle grassy slopes of silver-leaved Ironbark and bloodwood, and then rise into sandstone ridges with Acacia thickets and shrubby plants peculiar to the sandstone formation.
Not one of these birds was visible, nor was the fluty-voiced shrike thrush, which answers every strange call and mimics crude attempts to reproduce its varied notes. The blue kingfisher is investigating the tumour made by white ants in the bloodwood wherein the nest is annually excavated, and soon the chattering notes of the pair will be heard.
The range was of red soil, timbered with bloodwood, and stringy-bark. Two miles further on the country improved still more, continuing from thence into their camp, 6 miles. The course was altered from the range to N. by E., and at 20 miles a white hill was reached, from which they looked down on the sea about half-a-mile distant beneath them. This was Newcastle Bay.
In the crevices of logs supporting the water-trough, which proved to be a popular refreshment spot of many species of birds, clamorous with thirst, seeds were deposited, and when the rains came the trough was fringed and decorated with pinnate leaves of sprouting wattles, some of which grew so strongly, notwithstanding the absence of soil, save that which occurs from the slow decay of seasoned bloodwood, that if summary measures had not been taken the trough might have been embowered.
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