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Tuesday, 16th April, The Bonney.

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Category: John McDouall Stuart - Fifth Expedition

Written by John McDouall Stuart

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Tuesday, 16th April, The Bonney. Still cloudy. Started at 8 a.m. on a bearing of 380 degrees. At 11.15 changed to 40 degrees, with the intention of cutting the McLaren. Camped at 3.40 p.m. Three miles from our start the creek spreads itself over a large grassy plain, thickly studded with gum-trees, covered with long grass, and a great number of white ants' nests of all sizes and shapes, putting one in mind of walking through a large cemetery. In many places it was very boggy. We followed it for ten miles, but it still continued the same; I could not see more than one hundred yards before me, the gum-trees, and sometimes a low scrub, being so thick. Not seeing anything of the McLaren coming into the plain, I changed my course to cut it and run it down, as I think that it will form a large creek where they join. In three miles we got out of the plain upon a red sandy soil, with spinifex, and scrubs of all kinds, in some places very thick, and difficult to get the horses through. When we were in the gum plain the atmosphere was so close and heavy, and the ground so soft, that the sweat was running in streams from the horses; and when we halted for a few minutes they were puffing and blowing as though they had just come in from running a race. I continued the second course for fourteen miles, but saw nothing of the McLaren; it must have joined the plain before I left it. Thus ends the Bonney and the McLaren. We passed over several quartz and ironstone ranges of low hills crossing our course, and camped under a high one, without water. Wind south-east. Cloudy.

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