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Updated: June 12, 2025
Not much over forty years after Oxley's gloomy prediction of the future of the interior, country had been found surpassing in richness any that was then known. The pathways for the pioneers had been marked out, and a few more years was to see the whole of the continent up to the western boundary of Queensland the busy scene of pastoral industry.
Oxley's various hills, rising like so many islands, from the otherwise level country on the Lachlan; and far in the north-west the level blue horizon exactly resembled an open sea; while to the westward the line of vision was broken by the summits of Croker's and Harvey's ranges.
"Oxley's orders are `change of scene, no work, and a life in the open air'; I am therefore endeavouring to weigh the respective merits of a cruise in my old tub the Lalage, and big-game shooting somewhere in Central Africa.
On the 30th of April he left Segenhoe Station, on the Upper Hunter, and on crossing Oxley's 1818 track to Port Macquarie, at once entered on the unexplored northern region. On the 19th May, after traversing a good deal of unpromising country, a fertile valley was entered, which led the travellers on to the banks of the Gwydir River, one of Cunningham's most important discoveries.
Sam will give you the yarn.... Goodbye. I fear we shall not meet again. Yours very truly, John Oxley." A few days later, as the Indiana was sailing northward from Tucopia, Denison took out old Oxley's yarn. It was written in a round schoolboy hand on the blank pages of a venerable account-book.
Having arrived early at this spot I again ascended the range, and proceeded along its crests to one of the highest summits, named Warroga. From this point I could at length recognise Mount Murulla, Oxley's Pic, Moan, and other pinnacles of the Liverpool range, and with which I now connected my last station upon the Namoi.
See an interesting passage in Major Mitchell's Three Expeditions, vol. ii. p. 28. See likewise Oxley's First Journal, p. 75. See Australian and New Zealand Magazine, No. iv. p. 234.
The descent of the Lachlan was continued, and on May 5th, they reached Oxley's lowest point on the river, where he had given up the quest as hopeless amid the shallow, stagnant lagoons that then covered the face of the country. The tree marked by Oxley himself was not found, it having been, as was ascertained, burnt down by the blacks, and the bottle buried by him, broken by a child.
Oxley." Following the bank of the river the party met with no obstruction to their progress for twelve days, save the usual accidents and delays incidental to travelling in an unexplored region. Oxley's opinion of the value of the new district had, as is evident from his journal, been steadily decreasing since leaving the depot.
"Guilt's fatal doom in vain would mortals fly, And they that breathe the purest air must die." See Lang's New South Wales, vol. ii. p. 119. The difference of temperature in twelve hours' journey is stated to be upwards of twenty degrees. OXLEY's Journal of his First Expedition, p. 4.
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