Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/110

 track to the settlement of Port Macquarie, which extends for some distance along the bank of the river, traversing mangrove thickets and brushy forest land. Having passed at the back of Dr. Carlisle's vineyards, I arrived at Port Macquarie about one o'clock. After taking some refreshment there, and given my horse a feed of corn, I continued my journey. The road I took led me along some forest land and marshes to the beautiful residence of Major Innes, which is situated on a gentle eminence, that slopes down gradually to a large fresh- water lake, beyond which the house commands an extensive view of the ocean and the coast. A few miles further on, I met the line of marked trees to the Manning, near Walter's station. The country now consisted for some distance of thickly wooded, undulating forest land, tolerably grassy, and intersected by chains of water-holes and small watercourses, until I reached a sandy patch of ground, thickly clothed with grass, and timbered exclusively by Banksia, or honeysuckle, which is rather a rare tree in the Port Macquarie district, except in the immediate vicinity of the coast. Having again entered on a tract of the ordinary grassy forest land, heavily wooded by black-butt, iron-bark, stringybark, grey gum, mahogany, and forest oak, and furrowed by innumerable brushy hollows, containing water-courses, I rode on over this kind of country until dusk, when I stopped for the night at a gravelly creek just outside of the brush.