Notes of an Excursion in the Vicinity of the Vasse 25 February 1835 by J Molloy

by John Molloy

Wednesday, 25 February 1835. This morning after accompanying Mess Roe & Bland for ¾ of an hour the uninteresting appearance of the country not offering any inducement to continue with them to the extent of their excursion, we separated at 9.45 taking a direction to the SSE. At 10 o'clock we came on a stream of pure fresh water which ran parallel with our course for a short distance at ½ past 10 turned to the SE passing over some abrupt hills of red sand stone in which was imbedded some dark metalliferous substance. At 12 o'clock changed our course to East and in about a quarter of an hour we entered on an open plain which continued with some few scattered trees until 1 o'clock. At this time we fell in with a river course or channel containing pools of salt water, its direction North^ly halted until 1½ p.m. when we moved forward & at 1¾ came on a river flowing E b S this was Salt we traced it to the bay and called it Toby's Inlet. It had ab^t 3^ft water on a sort of bar extending some distance from the beach — we computed our movements along its banks to be ab^t 2½ miles — at 3 o'clock we continued along the line of the beach. The point beyond Green bush Point towards Cape Naturaliste bearing NW by W. The Ellen was not visible either from being Shut out by some Intervening point or the haze which hung about the land on that part of the Bay — made several attempts to penetrate to the Southward in which we were prevented by reason of encountering another inlet too deep for us to ford, passed near its junction with the beach was sanded up (bouché — took a SE course we had not preceeded more than 400y^ds when we found ourselves on an extensive River course with large pools of clear fresh water interspersed with the tea tree & at 10 minutes to 4 we recommenced our journey passing through a Spearwood and Bulrush swamp which to clear more promptly we took a South^ly direction; its outer skirts were still on fire in detached places and part of the ground we walked over had been but a few hours before the scene of considerable conflagration which doubtless would have been observed on board the Ellen — in this traject we passed over half mile of ground and debouched on to a plain — changed our course to SE and for 1 mile we passed over some good land at the end of which we were gratified by finding ourselves on the banks of an apparently large River its width being at this point ab^t 30 y^ds its banks very steep varying from 12 to 20 feet — and with a considerable depth of water — numerous flocks of wild duck were floating in tame tranquility on its bosom hardly noticing our approach nor were they disturbed by it — they found a twofold security in the depth of the river and in the absence of small shot M^r Bussell being our only musqueteer with a small store of ball cartridges — we named this river the Lenox — we sought a passage to cross along its rich and loamy banks & in so doing found it to wind to South and to the West, we at last came to a native bridge on which we crossed over & at 10 minutes past 6 we halted having countermarked to point opposite that which we first made it — he we bivouacked for the night.

Thursday, 26 February 1835. At 6.10 on the following morning we resumed our walk to the Vasse taking a course East for an hour over tolerable soil at 7.40 came to a swamp found a pool of water in a water course it was rather brackish, halted & refreshed ourselves until 8.30 continued our course East until 9.40 the land passed over inferior we saw in the last hour the (New River*), on our left and as the distance was not more than 4 or 500y^ds — it assumed more the appearance of a lake — at this point its water was brackish we then took a South course until 10.10 — then East until Eleven, the land bad in quality — entered on the clay plains & arrived at M^r Bussells on the Vasse at 11.45.

* I called that the "dalton" originally.

(sgd) J. Molloy