This spot is one of the most charming that even imagination could
paint. In the background were the high and pointed peaks of the main
chain, from which sloped a delightful green valley; through this the
creek meandered, here and there winding round the foot of little
pine-clad hills of unvarying red colour, whilst the earth from which
they sprung was covered with a carpet of verdure and vegetation of
almost every imaginable hue. It was happiness to lie at ease upon such
a carpet and gaze upon such a scene, and it was happiness the more
ecstatic to know that I was the first of a civilised race of men who
had ever beheld it. My visions of a former night really seemed to be
prophetic. The trend of the creek, and the valley down which it came,
was about 25 degrees south of west. We soon found it became contracted
by impinging hills. At ten miles from camp we found a pool of water in
the bed. In about a couple of miles farther, to my surprise I found we
had reached its head and its source, which was the drainage of a big
hill. There was no more water and no rock-holes, neither was there any
gorge. Some triodia grew on the hills, but none on the lower ground.
The valley now changed into a charming amphitheatre.
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