124 Daley, Notes of a Visit to Mallacoota Inlet. [voi'^xxxiV 



Ordovician or granitic. The descent to the river is very abrupt, 

 over a rough stretch of road down to the bridge. The Genoa 

 River is a clear mountain stream with thickly-wooded banks. 

 We proceeded down its course in a motor-boat. There is good 

 maize land along the stream, and dairying is successfully 

 carried on. Near Genoa the blackberry brambles have become 

 a very great nuisance. After a short distance through granite 

 countrj^ the formation changes to Ordovician or auriferous 

 measures on the eastern side, and Pliocene or a comparatively 

 recent formation on the western side of river and lake. The 

 river-banks were lined with reeds, rushes, ferns, mosses, and 

 water plants, above which were Acacias, Bursarias, Boobyallas, 

 " Lilly-pillies," tea-tree, and Cassinia, with Blood-wood, Silver- 

 top, Apple-tree, and Ironbark overhead. The Bursaria bloom, 

 here called the " Christmas Bush," was very fine. So calm 

 was the water that every detail in the vegetation was perfectly 

 reproduced by reflection in the mirror-like surface of the 

 stream, adding much to the beauty of the scene. We passed 

 a snake with head upraised, swimming across the river, which, 

 gradually widening, receives first the Maramingo Creek, then 

 the chief trilnitary stream, the Wallagaraugli, from the north- 

 east. Just before entering the Top Lake the river is 200 yards 

 wide. Between the Top Lake and the Inlet proper is a channel 

 called " The Narrows," a mile long and 300 yards wide. The 

 banks of the stream and the bays and reaches of the lakes 

 offer a succession of fine vistas of timbered slopes and head- 

 lands. 



Crossing the Top Lake, a storm threatened, but we arrived 

 safely at our destination, the Lake Wow Hotel, 20 miles from 

 Genoa. This comfortable liotel is on a ridge commanding a 

 splendid view of the Inlet and the ocean. On the western side 

 is Mallacoota West, where a township has been surveyed near 

 Captain's Point. 



The physical features of Mallacoota are interesting. The 

 geological formation generally is Ordovician, with Pliocene to 

 the west of the Inlet, in contact with a strip of Ordovician 

 country, in its turn resting against the granite. The Pliocene 

 also extends eastwards for a short distance towards Cape Howe, 

 meeting granite to the east, and to the north the Ordovician 

 which forms the eastern boundary of the Inlet. The contour 

 is broken up by numerous bays and reaches extending some- 

 times for miles, and into which streams like the Uowall and 

 the Little Rivers, Howe and Harrison Creeks, find their way 

 through typical jungle growth. The headlands, fringed with 

 tea-tree on the shore, and well wooded, are gently sloping, 

 sometimes almost precipitous, frequently symmetrically rounded. 

 Behind is a background of tliickly-timbered hills and mountains, 



