The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888Favenc, Ernest
History
The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888
Favenc, Ernest
Australia -- Discovery and exploration
The following year the discoverer of the Darling Downs, accompanied by
his old companion, Charles Frazer, Colonial Botanist, proceeded by sea to
Moreton Bay with the intention of starting from the settlement and
connecting with his camp on the Darling Downs by way of Cunningham's Gap.
In this attempt he was also accompanied by the Commandant, Captain Logan.
The party followed up the Logan River, and partly ascended Mount Lindsay,
a lofty and remarkable mountain on the Dividing Range. They were,
however, unsuccessful in finding the Gap on this occasion. Cunningham,
however, immediately started from Limestone Station on the Bremer, now
the town of Ipswich, and this time was quite successful. On the 24th Of
August he writes:--
"About one o'clock we passed a mile to the southward of our last
position, and, entering a valley, we pitched our tents within three miles
of the gap we now suspected to be the Pass of last year's journey.
"It being early in the afternoon, I sent one of my people (who, having
been one of my party on that long tour, knew well the features of the
country lying to the westward of the Dividing Range) to trace a series of
forest ridges, which appeared to lead directly up to the foot of the
hollow-back of the range.
"To my utmost gratification he returned at dusk, having traced the ridge
about two and a-half miles to the foot of the Dividing Range, whence he
ascended into the Pass and, from a grassy head immediately above it,
beheld the extensive country lying west of the Main Range. He recognised
Darling and Canning Downs, patches of Peel's Plains, and several
remarkable points of the forest hills on that side, fully identifying
this hollow-back with the pass discovered last year at the head of
Miller's Valley, notwithstanding its very different appearance when
viewed from the eastern country."
The next day, accompanied by one man, Cunningham ascended the pass that
bears his name. Following the ridges, they arrived in about two and
three-quarter miles to the foot of the Gap.
"Immediately the summit of the pass appeared broad before us, bounded on
each side by most stupendous heads, towering at least two thousand feet
above it.
"Here the difficulties of the Pass commenced. We had now penetrated to
the actual foot of the Pass without the smallest difficulty, it now
remained to ascend by a steep slope to the level of its entrance. This
slope is occupied by a very close wood, in which red cedar, sassafras,
palms, and other ornamental inter-tropical trees are frequent. Through
this shaded wood lye penetrated, climbing up a steep bank of a very rich
loose earth, in which large fragments of a very compact rock are embedded.
At length we gained the foot of a wall of bare rock, which we found
stretching from the southward of the Pass.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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