194 RAMBLES IN CHAMPION BAY 



westward, and late on the evening of the 15th reached the 

 station of Mr Scott, a gentleman who insisted on our 

 remaining with him until we were all thoroughly refreshed ; 

 and there is no doubt that, although we had not met with 

 hair-breadth escapes, imminent perils, or suffered the 

 extremes of hunger and thirst, we were considerably worn 

 with constant exertion and sleeping on the ground. 



At Port Grey, Packington, and other places on the 

 west coast, I stayed for the remainder of the year 1890, 

 visiting several distant spots, and taking two or three trips 

 along the coast in a fishing-boat hired for the purpose. 

 These rambles I cannot stay to narrate here. The infor- 

 mation concerning the animals and plants of the region is 

 embodied in the next chapter. 



The country round about Port Grey, now parcelled out 

 among the settlers, is of a similar character to that 

 described after crossing the sand-ridges near the great 

 marsh. Behind the township of Geraldion there is a ridge 

 or range of flat-topped hills with two prominent peaks, 

 which are not, however, of any great height. Mount 

 Fairfax, four miles from the sea, is about six hundred feet 

 high ; while Wizard Peak, seven miles to the south-east, 

 is seven hundred feet. Both are of ironstone formation, 

 and between them there are three or four water-courses 

 which are wet only in rainy weather. The "river" 

 Greenough is one of these water-courses, emptying itself, 

 if it ever does empty itself, into the sea at Port Grey. It 

 is a series of brackish water-holes at the bottom of 

 limestone banks thirty feet high. The last mile is a 

 salt-water creek, and in several places in the bed trees 

 and grass were growing at the time of my visit. I must 

 add, however, that the plains about the Greenough bear 

 the character among agriculturists of being the most 

 fertile land on the middle portion of the West Australian 

 coast ; and the richness of cultivated vegetation here bears 

 witness to the correctness of their judgment. 



Along the shore to the south from Port Grey there 

 are hills of ironstone and sandy ridges of one hundred to 

 two hundred feet high as far as I have been along that 



