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Updated: May 14, 2025
A ten-mile journey was accomplished to-day, the country for the first seven having slightly improved into red soil ridges coarsely grassed, having patches of scrub along their summits. The remaining three were of the usual character, heath and brushwood, in the midst of which, in a miserable hole as it is described, they were obliged to camp.
After passing the little conical hill of which I have already spoken, we traced the creek down until we saw plains of great extent before us, and as the creek trended to the south, skirting them on that side, we rode across them on a bearing of 322 degrees or N.W.1/2 N. They were 7 or 8 miles in breadth, and full 12 miles in length from east to west; their soil was rich and grassed in many places.
The excisemen were still busy in the orchard, and at last he was tempted to enter, and watch their proceedings. When he came closer he found that the secret cellar, of whose existence he had been totally unaware, was formed by timbers placed across from side to side about a foot under the ground, and grassed over.
The sloping way was through groves and woods, and over grassed slopes, and around queer rocks; and there were flowers with stories in their hearts, and trees holding tree-spirits. Pigeons cried korup-korup; and doves sobbed owao, owao and cicada wheezed and fluted and tinkled. All those who wait for absent dear ones make, if they can, a pilgrimage to the peak called Dakeyama.
Our course was over a gradually rising plain, well grassed at intervals, with plenty of salt bush, and with stone on the surface, composed of quartz, ironstone, and the hard white flinty stone so frequently met with. The scrub has nearly ceased. The dip of the country is south. During the night we again heard a dog barking at one of the horses, and during the day we saw two kangaroos.
Got an early start, and steering North 70 degrees East for about twelve miles, we reached the river, and camped at a fresh pool of splendid water. This is a fine large branch; it is fresh, and I believe, if not the main, is one of the largest branches. The country is now more undulating and splendidly grassed, and would carry sheep well.
Of this they were now convinced, but to make certain, agreed to continue travelling down it for two days more, and with this intent camped on a creek coming in from the southward. The margin of the river is generally open and coarsely grassed, timbered with mahogany, bloodwood, and melaleuca, the points of scrubs and brushwood occasionally closing down to the stream.
On our way we passed some very fine long water-holes; some of which were surrounded with reeds, and others covered with the white species of Nymphaea; groves of Pandanus spiralis occupied their banks. Some fine plains, full of melon-holes, but well grassed, separated from each other by belts of forest-land, in which the Pandanus was also very frequent, were crossed during the day. June 27.
As we passed up the valley of the Light, we had some rich and picturesque scenery around us the fertile vale running nearly north and south, backed to the westward by well wooded irregular ranges grassed to their summits, and to the eastward shut in by a dark looking and more heavily timbered range, beyond which rose two peaks of more distant hills, through the centre of the valley the Light took its course, but at present it was only a chain of large ponds unconnected by any stream; and thus, I believe, it remains the greater part of the year, although occasionally swollen to a broad and rapid current.
Here the country suddenly changed into lightly timbered box flats, poorly grassed, and flooded. Four miles more brought them to a salt-water creek, which had to be run up a-mile-and-a-half before drinkable water was found. The camp was pitched on a lotus lagoon, the water of which was slightly brackish. It received the name of Thalia Creek.
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