^"^•'"1 Excursion to Pakenham. 1 1 1 



1914 J 



EXCURSION TO PAKENHAM. 

 The excursion to Pakenham on Saturday, 17th October, was 

 well attended, fifteen members and friends, including several 

 ladies, meeting the leaders at Pakenham (35 miles) on the 

 arrival of the morning train. The morning was fine and cool, 

 and the drive northwards was very enjoyable. At the Deep 

 Creek, about three miles from the station, Mrs. Wisewould 

 and the Misses Keble and Major provided bush tea before 

 starting on the walk over the hills. During the walk a number 

 of interesting flowering plants were met with, and Mr. F. 

 Pitcher has kindly made a list of those found in flower, which 

 contains the names of about 70 species. Doubtless in an 

 ordinary season the list would have been much longer, but 

 the exceedingly dry spring had greatly reduced the flowering 

 period of a number of species. He mentions as the most 

 noteworthy Olearia {Aster) stellulata, var. lirata, Spiridium 

 parvifolium, PuUencea scahra, P. Gtmnii, Daviesia latifolia, 

 Dillwynia floribunda, and Dumpier a stricta. The orchids, 

 Pterostylis nutans, Prasophyllum patens, Thelymitra longifolia, 

 Caladenia carnea, and C. Patersoni, were also collected. Some 

 seven or eight of the commoner ferns were also seen. The 

 summit of the hills to the east of Upper Pakenham was reached 

 about 2 p.m., when the grand panorama spread out before the 

 party greatly surprised those who had not been in the district 

 before. A halt was here made for lunch, after which one of 

 the leaders gave some account of the geology and physiography 

 of the neighbourhood. Kelly's Hill, as our vantage spot is 

 locally known, is situated in allotment 77, parish of Nar Nar 

 Goon, and may be regarded as the most southern part of the 

 central highlands of Victoria. It is about 790 feet above sea- 

 level, and owes its prominence to a capping of basalt which 

 has filled an old stream valley, now, through the cutting back 

 of flanking streams in the softer Silurian shales and mudstones, 

 many hundreds of feet above them. Looking from the hill 

 across the south-western and south-eastern quadrants, several 

 outstanding physiographical features present themselves. 

 Cappings of basalt on conspicuous elevations at Beaconsfield, 

 Mount Ararat, near the Tarago, and elsewhere preserve the 

 remnants of an old system that drained an area much more 

 extensive than that served by the streams now falling into 

 the same basin. There can be little doubt, from the contours 

 of the area, that this drainage system found an outlet through 

 the western channel of Western Port Bay. That the catch- 

 ment included what is now part of the floor of Port Phillip Bay 

 is evident from the truncated ridges terminating in Mounts 

 Eliza and Martha and Arthur's Seat, here seen from the east. 

 It is not difficult to picture the great early Tertiary valley 



