Explorations in Australia: The Journals of John McDouall Stuart During the Years 1858, 1859, 1860, 1861, and 1862, When He Fixed the Centre of the Continent and Successfully Crossed It from Sea to SeaStuart, John McDouall
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Explorations in Australia: The Journals of John McDouall Stuart During the Years 1858, 1859, 1860, 1861, and 1862, When He Fixed the Centre of the Continent and Successfully Crossed It from Sea to Sea
Stuart, John McDouall
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Stuart, John McDouall, 1815-1866
Friday, 1st June, The Davenport Range. The horses having strayed, we did
not get a start till late. Our course was 22 degrees, and at two miles we
struck a small gum creek coming from the range and running
west-north-west. At three miles and a half we crossed a larger one coming
from, and running in, the same direction. Then commenced again the same
sort of country that we passed through the other day. At eight miles
struck a splendid large gum creek or river, having long and deep reaches
of water with fish four or five inches in length; it is running through
the plain as far as I can see, which is only a short distance, the ground
being low and level. Its course at this place is to the west-north-west;
it is very broad, and in some places the banks are perpendicular, and are
well grassed and covered with fine gum-trees, mulga and other bushes.
From bank to bank its width is about ten chains. This is the finest creek
for water that we have passed since leaving Chambers Creek. The day being
far advanced, I shall camp here, and get to the range to-morrow. I am
very much inclined to follow this creek and see where it empties itself;
but I expect to find a large one close to the range, or on the other
side. I wish also to get on the top to see what the country on ahead is
like. The fact of fish being in this creek leads me to think that it does
not empty itself into the gum plains, like others lately passed, but that
it must flow either into the sea on the north-west coast, or into a lake.
I have named it the Bonney Creek, after Charles Bonney, Esquire, late
Commissioner of Crown Lands for South Australia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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