At first, the prospects of this new colony seemed most hopeful,
exploration was pushed out to the eastward for one hundred miles, as far
as Mount Stirling, and northward for some sixty miles or so, and the
country discovered gave every promise of being fitted for both pasture
and agriculture.
Captain Bannister made a trip in 1831 from Perth, the new settlement, to
the old one of King George's Sound; and, although he made no important
discoveries, he passed through fairly available country nearly the whole
of the way.
For some reason or other, however, a period of stagnation set in, and
little more was done in the way of exploring until Lieutenant Grey took
the field in 1837. In this new settlement, so entirely opposed to Port
Jackson in situation, no difficulties of any magnitude were experienced
in passing the coast range, as had been the great obstacle of the early
explorers in New South Wales. Unfortunately, however, the comparatively
lower altitude of the Darling Range led to there being no such flow of
water inland as even those disappointing rivers the Macquarie and Lachlan
had afforded.
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