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Crossing the river, we started for the falls, in charge of a sharp little urchin who acted as guide. After leaving the narrow valley which the river has cut for itself through a superstratum of yellowish clay, the country becomes nearly level a dreary plain, covered with fern and the manuka bush.
The manuka, a sort of scrub, has a pretty blossom like a diminutive Michaelmas daisy, white petals and a brown centre, with a very aromatic odour; and this little flower is succeeded by a berry with the same strong smell and taste of spice. The shepherds sometimes make an infusion of these when they are very hard-up for tea; but it must be like drinking a decoction of cloves.
She looked up at the dark, close, dry leaves of the manuka, at the chinks of blue between, and now and again a tiny yellowish flower dropped on her. Pretty yes, if you held one of those flowers on the palm of your hand and looked at it closely, it was an exquisite small thing. Each pale yellow petal shone as if each was the careful work of a loving hand.
But oh, how strange, how horrible! As Mrs. Harry Kember came up close she looked, in her black waterproof bathing-cap, with her sleepy face lifted above the water, just her chin touching, like a horrible caricature of her husband. In a steamer chair, under a manuka tree that grew in the middle of the front grass patch, Linda Burnell dreamed the morning away. She did nothing.
A little after mid-day we ran our boat to the lee of the island, and: whilst she was steadied by the same primitive method of holding on to branches of manuka and other scrub, I scrambled out and up a little cliff, where a goat could hardly have found footing, till I reached a spot big enough to stand on, from whence I anxiously watched the disembarkation of some of the provisions, and of the gridiron and kettle.
Schollick's spent over £100,000 on Oondooroo, and left it practically penniless. Macpherson drove from Dagworth with all his belongings on a buck-board, leaving unprofitable, and lost many thousands of pounds. Fraser, of Manuka, who came a little later, died of a broken heart.
It was the bullock I had seen jump and throw up its head. When we reached Manuka Station there was only one water-hole near the road. The owner of the station was preserving this for his stock. The distance to the next water was 20 miles, so it was absolutely necessary we should obtain a drink for the bullocks before we tackled the long stage. I interviewed Mr.
We went on along the track for a couple of miles and camped on the sheltered side of a round tussock hill, in a hole where there had been a landslip. We used all our candle-ends to get a fire alight, but once we got it started we knocked the wet bark off 'manuka' sticks and logs and piled them on, and soon had a roaring fire.
Night had closed in by now, and we were soon glad to retire to our blankets, and the sweet fresh beds of Manuka twigs laid on the floor of Harper's hut, for the temporary accommodation of us visitors.
Those facing the north were called Oondooroo, Manuka, Sesbania and Werna. Mr. Johnstone conducted the first Government land sale this year, at which Lynett and ourselves secured the allotments facing Elderslie Street on the north side, extending through to Vindex Street at the back, comprising an area of about three acres each.