Charles Darwin – In AustraliaDarwin spent the night at what he considered a very comfortable inn at Emu Ferry,
on the banks of the Nepean River and about fifty-five kilometres west of Sydney. He
describes the trees during his journey as being nearly all eucalypts belonging to the
one family, with their foliage being scanty, mostly placed in a vertical position and of
a particular pale green tint without any gloss. January is the middle of the Australian
summer, it was hot, dry, dusty, and in contrast to the forests of South America the
country seemed arid and sterile:
Although this is such a flourishing country, the appearance of infertility is to a certain
extent the truth; the soil without doubt is good, but there is so great a deficiency in rain
and running water that it cannot produce much. The Agricultural crops and indeed those
in Gardens, are estimated to fail once in three years; and it has so happened on more than
one successive year. So that the Colony cannot supply itself with the bread and vegetables
which its inhabitants consume. It is essentially pastoral, and chiefly so for sheep and not the
larger animals: the alluvial land near Emu Ferry is some of the best cultivated which I have
seen; and certainly the scenery on the banks of the Nepean, bounded to the west by the Blue
Mountains, was pleasing even to the eye of a person thinking of England.The Blue Mountains may have looked impressive as they rose up from the Emu
Plains but once on the sandstone plateau Darwin found the scenery exceedingly
monotonous, with scrubby gum trees lining each side of the road and with little traffic
except for the occasional bullock wagon piled high with bales of wool. After reaching
Wentworth Falls he stayed the night at the Weatherboard Inn and the next morning
walked down Jamison Creek until the ground fell away beneath him into what he
described as a ‘grand amphitheatre’. Darwin looked out over a vast valley carved
into the plateau with the vertical cliffs of the Sydney sandstone causing Wentworth
Falls to drop hundreds of metres towards the floor of the Kedumba River, the terrain
all covered in a forest of eucalypts that extended to the horizon. Darwin saw this as
an ancient seacoast when in fact the uplift of the Blue Mountains had allowed the
Kedumba River to carve out a large valley through the resistant sandstone that forms
the cliffs and headlands:
Suddenly and without any preparation, through the trees, which border the pathway, an
immense gulf is seen at a depth of perhaps 1500 feet beneath one’s feet. Walking a few
yards further, one stands on the brink of a precipice. Below is a grand bay or gulf, for I know
not what other name to give it, thickly covered with forest. The point of view is situated
as it were at the head of the Bay, for the line of cliff diverges away on each side, showing
headland, behind headland, as on a bold sea coast.85