EXPLORERS ON YORK PENINSULA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18954, 30 August 1923, Page 10

EXPLORERS ON YORK PENINSULA.

THE BRITISH EXPEDITION. Captain G. H. Wilkins, the leader of the British Museum Scientific Expedition, telegraphed recently from Moreton, in North Queensland, as follows, (says tho Brisbane correspondent of the Sydney Daily Telegraph):— “The expedition has reached Moreton Telegraph Station, from Thursday Island, by way of Temple Bay, overland, skirting the Richardson Range, and then crossing the Great Dividing Range to tho Batavia River. I was partially blind during the trip, owing to a nocturnal spider biting my eye during sleep. Our vessel grounded on the bar at the river mouth, and narrowly escaped foundering. For some time she bumped and listed, the waves sweeping the dock, but the sturdilybuilt boat survived, reaching deeper water safely. Our equipment was wet, but not spoiled. Crocodiles were numerous in the river. We shot one a few yards from the camp. , , . "The coastal district, until reaching the Great Dividing Range, is sandy. It IB practically barren of mammals, but biros were fairly numerous. Some aare specimens, including red-chcek, black cockatoos, and rille birds, were secured. All fauna was more numerous on the Range on the western side, but was not too plentiful. The, few natives hereabouts exist on roots and .wild bees honey. Part of the expedition is returning to Townsville, via Thursday Island I, myself, em travelling overland to Cooktown. Moreton is a lonely telegraph station right in the centre of the far north of York Peninsula, while Temple Bay is on the cast coast, so Captain Wilkins appears to have encountered, a small river (which ho does not name) flowing into the bay, and sailed up it as far as possible, and then proceeded overland to the centre of the peninsula.