Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 2 / With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix, and of the Present Colony of New South Wales

by T. L. Mitchell

September 1.

Heavy rain and fog detained us in the same camp this morning and I availed myself of the day for the purpose of laying down my recent survey. The results satisfied me that the coastline on the engraved map was very defective and indeed the indentations extended so much deeper into the land that I still entertained hopes of finding some important inlet to the eastward, analogous to that remarkable break of the mountain chain at Mount William.

STILL RETARDED BY THE SOFT SOIL.

September 2.

We travelled as much in a north-east direction as the ground permitted but, although I should most willingly have followed the connecting features whatever their directions, I could not avoid the passage of various swamps or boggy soft hollows in which the carts and more especially the boat-carriage, notwithstanding the greatest exertions on the part of the men, again sank up to the axles. I had proceeded with the light carts and one heavy cart nearly nine miles while the boat-carriage fell at least six miles behind me, the other heavy carts having also been retarded from the necessity for yoking additional teams to the cattle drawing the boats. The weather was still unsettled and the continued rains had at length made the surface so soft that even to ride over it was in many places difficult. I had reached some fine forest land on the bank of a running stream where the features were bolder, and I hoped to arrive soon at the good country near the head of the Wannon. I encamped without much hope that the remainder of the party could join us that night and they in fact did remain six miles behind. I had never been more puzzled in my travels than I was with respect to the nature of the country before us then. Mount Napier bore 74 degrees East of North distant about 16 miles. The little rivulet was flowing northward, and yet we had not reached the interior side of that elevated though swampy ground dividing the fine valleys we had seen further westward from the country sloping towards the sea.

LEAVE ONE OF THE BOATS, AND REDUCE THE SIZE OF THE BOAT CARRIAGE.

September 3.

This morning we had steady rain accompanied as usual by a north-west wind; I remarked also that at any rise of the barometer after such rain the wind changed to the south-east in situations near the coast, or to the north-east when we were more inland. I sent back the cattle we had brought forward to this camp to assist those behind, and in the meanwhile Mr. Stapylton took a ride along the ridge on which we were encamped in order to ascertain its direction. Towards evening Burnett returned from the carts with the intelligence that the boat-carriage could not be got out of the swamps and that, after the men had succeeded in raising it with levers and had drawn it some way, it had again sunk and thus delayed the carts, but that the latter were at length coming on, two men having been left behind with the boat-carriage. Mr. Stapylton returned in the afternoon having ascertained that a swamp of upwards of a mile in breadth and extending north and south as far as he could see lay straight before us, and he had concluded that the rivulet upon which we were then encamped turned into it. Under such circumstances we could not hope to be able to travel much further with the boats, nor even indeed with the carts unless we found ground with a firmer surface in the country before us. Ere we could reach the nearest habitations of civilised men we had yet to traverse 400 miles of a country intersected by the highest mountains and watered by the largest rivers known in New Holland.

September 4.

Although the boats and their carriage had been of late a great hindrance to us I was very unwilling to abandon such useful appendages to an exploring party, having already drawn them overland nearly 3000 miles. A promising part of the coast might still be explored, large rivers were to be crossed, and we had already found boats useful on such occasions. One however might answer these temporary purposes, since for the main object, the exploration of inland seas, they could not possibly be wanted. We had two and the outer one, which was both larger and heavier than the inner, had been shaken so much when suspended without the thwarts that she was almost unserviceable in the water, and very leaky as we had lately found in exploring the Glenelg. She had in fact all along served as a case for the inner boat, which could thus be kept distended by the thwarts and was consequently in excellent repair and in every respect the best. I determined therefore to abandon the outer boat and shorten the carriage so that the fore and hind wheels would be brought two feet nearer each other. I expected from this arrangement that, instead of boats retarding the party, this one might thus be drawn in advance with the light carts.