View up the River Hastings at the Junction with Kings River

From Narrative of a Survey Volume 1 by Phillip Parker King May 10. The next morning we anchored off Port Macquarie and whilst the Lady Nelson was beating up to an anchorage Lieutenant Oxley accompanied me in the whale-boat to examine the entrance. May 14. And on the 14th Lieutenant Oxley and Mr. Roe accompanied me in one of our boats upon the examination of the river. After reaching our former station on the south bank we proceeded up the long reach towards Black-man Point, on which a tribe of natives were collected: the river is here divided into two streams we followed that which trended to the westward as it appeared to be the most considerable. At the end of the next reach the river is again divided into two branches, and as the southernmost was found upon trial to be the shoalest, the other was followed. On our left was a small contracted arm, which probably communicates with the lagoon on Rawdon Island here we landed to examine the trees which so thickly and beautifully cover both banks: several sorts of large growth were noticed, among which was a tree of the trichillieae, natural order Jussieu (Trichillia glandulosa), which the colonists have flattered with the name of rosewood, and a ficus of gigantic growth, both of which are very abundant. We landed at Point Elizabeth and walked a mile back through a fine open country, well timbered and richly clothed with luxuriant grass and apparently much frequented by kangaroos. From the edge of the bank Mount Cairncross, a remarkable round-topped hill which is conspicuously seen from the coast over the entrance of the port,* appeared over the next reach, and formed a rich picturesque back-ground for the view.