NORTH HEAD, SYDNEY HARBOUR
Friday, July 1st.—We left by the 9.30 train for Shepparton, in pouring rain, passing through a flat rich grazing country, which seemed well stocked with sheep. The grass looked luxuriant, and must be excellent for dairy produce. The fences were different from any we had seen before, made of felled trees laid lengthwise all round the paddocks. As may easily be imagined, they form a formidable obstacle for young horses, many of which were running in the paddocks. All this was interesting, but the beauties of the distant landscape were quite blotted out by the rain and mist. However, when we crossed the Goulbourn, the sun began to try and peep through the clouds, which had hitherto hidden everything from our view. Shepparton is a rapidly growing township, with 2,000 inhabitants. A few years ago there was not a single house in the place.
Sydney Harbour
The township of Shepparton, like all Australian settlements, is arranged in square blocks, the houses consisting chiefly of four- or six-roomed cottages of one story, built of wood or corrugated iron. At present the whole place appears to be under water, but its inhabitants say that in summer it is beautiful, and the pasturage certainly looks excellent. In the course of our drives we went to Mr. and Mrs. Robinson's house. There I met some ladies and gentlemen interested in ambulance work, to whom I said a few words and gave some papers. I hope they will communicate with the head-centre at Melbourne, and obtain permission to establish a branch-centre here. Everybody seems to agree that it would be most useful, as the doctors are few and far between, and there are only five medical men to an area of 1,000 square miles! We left by the 4.30 train for Seymour, Mr. Rose driving me to the station in his carriage with his pretty pair of ponies. They are said to be perfectly quiet, and I suppose they are, according to Australian ideas; but they did not come up to my notion of docility. Besides sundry kicks and buck-jumps, they had both legs over the splinter-bar once, one leg over the pole twice, and another leg over the traces, which fortunately came unfastened, or in the regular kicking match which ensued some mischief would have been done. I expected every minute that the little carriage would have been broken to pieces, and that we should have been landed at the bottom of the quagmire over which the road appeared to run.
Seymour was reached at 6.30, just in time to change into the express, and at Albury we were again transferred, at 10.30 p.m., into Lord Carrington's carriage, sent up from Sydney for us.