Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales by John Oxley
page 12 of 298 (04%)
page 12 of 298 (04%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
horses being very much fatigued, we stopped under the point of a rocky
hill for the evening. April 22.--A clear and frosty morning. Last night was the coldest we had yet experienced, the thermometer being at six o'clock as low as 26. We felt the cold most severely, being far beyond what we had been accustomed to on the coast; the difference of temperature in twelve hours being upwards of twenty degrees of cold. Our route lay through a dull uninteresting country, thickly covered with dwarf timber, daviesia, etc. Passed under Mount Lachlan, a hill of very considerable height; a stream of water runs north-westerly under its base. Turned off a little from our track to the right, and ascended Mount Molle, whence there is a beautiful and extensive prospect from the south by the west to the north. The country (except the dividing range between the Lachlan and Macquarie Rivers, which is very lofty and irregular) rising into gentle hills, thinly timbered, with rich intervening valleys, through which flow small streams of water. I think from Mount Molle, between the points above mentioned, a distance of forty miles round may he seen; the view to the west being lost in the blue haze of the horizon, no hills appearing in that quarter. The Mount itself is a fine rich hill, favourably situated for a commanding prospect; the valleys which surround it are excellent land, well watered with running streams. We descended its west side, and stopped for the night in the valley beneath, on the banks of a small rivulet. April 23.--A fine clear morning. At two o'clock we arrived at Limestone Creek, passing through a beautiful picturesque country of low hills and fine valleys well watered: the timber, as usual of diminutive growth, and unfit for any useful purpose. The ridges of the higher eminences were invariably stony, and about a mile and a half from the Creek, there |
|