Friday 2 December 1836

Friday, 2nd December

Since Monday I have been busy with my hut until yesterday when, being in want of fresh provisions, I made an early start with my gun and returned at sunset with my pockets well filled with game. Jacob accompanied me. We fell in with the Surveying party with which we kept company all day. We travelled further inland than I have yet been and the country, especially on the hills, is much more wooded than in our immediate neighbourhood. The Gum trees are of an immense size and would make abundance of fine timber. The common diameter of the full-grown trees is from three to four feet. The soil on these hills is bad, being very dry and filled with stones, most of which are strongly impregnated with iron. We found much limestone apparently of a good quality and Hardy who strayed away from the party brought us a beautiful specimen of granite of which he found a large quantity. Today I am again at work at my hut which progresses slowly, having lost the services of the native men who have taken it into their heads to leave us for a while, leaving their women behind. I enlisted three of the latter on Wednesday and found them very useful in carrying reeds for my thatch. The first dish of green pease was gathered yesterday from our garden. They relished exceedingly with a brace of wild fowl (red-bills) I killed the evening before. The temperature has been very moderate since my last notes on the thermometer.