Vol. XXVIII 

 191 



'•] Williamson, A Cycle Trip through East Gippsland. 69 



A CYCLE TRIP THROUGH EAST GIPPSLAND. 

 By H. B. Williamson. 

 {Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, 12th June, 191 1.) 

 During the recent Christmas hohdays I took the opportunity 

 of visiting East Gippsland, the Lakes district, and the vicinity 

 of the Snowy River. I wanted to see, in their native habitat, 

 the plants I had become familiar with by means of either dried 

 or freshly-picked specimens sent to me by collectors at Orbost — 

 Messrs. J. Rowe, E. Pescott, and C. H. Grove. I also wished 

 to get a knowledge of the birds of Gippsland. 



Leaving Melbourne by early train on Thursday, 29th Decem- 

 ber last, I arrived at Bairnsdale early in the afternoon. Cycling 

 to Swan Reach, on the Tambo River, 13 miles distant, I found 

 the road good, but uninteresting from a botanist's point of 

 view. On the roadside near Bairnsdale I gathered the Crab- 

 grass, Eleusine cruciata, and, in a flooded depression, Damasonium 

 australe. Just as I arrived at Swan Reach a little river 

 steamer was coming down from Mossiface. The bridge was 

 " up," and I was just in time to get a picture showing the 

 steamer passing under the bridge, which had been lifted in two 

 parts by hydraulic pressure. I have seen no prettier river 

 than the Tambo, and I advise anyone who has time when at 

 Bairnsdale to make the trip up to Mossiface. 



I made Nowa Nowa for breakfast next morning, getting 

 a lift in a waggonette whose driver wanted company. I could 

 have driven all the way to Orbost with him, but preferred 

 staying to look around till dinner-time. A stream, misnamed 

 Boggy Creek, here flows into an arm of Lake Tyers, which 

 winds up from the beach near Cunninghame. The hotel here 

 is the " half-way house " for Cunninghame to Buchan passengers, 

 the coach from Buchan and the motor launch from Cunninghame 

 meeting here at dinner-time. About the time of my visit it 

 was a busy time for the hotelkeeper and his wife and daughters 

 — especially the latter. Twenty people sat down to dinner on 

 the day I was there, and I must say the meal was a credit to 

 the management, though some of us did not get the courses in 

 rapid succession. I spent the morning noting the vegetation. 

 It was too late for many of the plants, but nice blooms of 

 Tristania laurina and Trachymene Billardieri were obtained. 

 Prostanthera hirtula also was common, but going off bloom. 

 I collected on the high banks the Oat-grass, Anisopogon 

 avenaceus — a tall, coarse species that I had not met with 

 before. The specimens of Kangaroo-grass, Anthistiria ciliata, 

 and Agrostis rudis, associated with the Oat-grass, were very 

 fine. Some tall shrubs of Leptospermum attenuatum grow just 

 behind the hotel, but fruit only was to be found on them. I 



