ia--ravines in the hills
which rise abruptly all around, sometimes in wild cliffs and sometimes
in steep wooded slopes. These gullies interlace with one another, one
leading into another, and stretching out little arms in all directions.
Turn into one and try to follow it up, and you never know where it will
end. Well, once upon a time there was a particularly wild one of these
gully systems on the coast hills where Sydney now is. Something sunk the
level of the land suddenly, and the gullies were depressed below
sea-level. The Pacific Ocean heard of this, broke a way through a great
cliff-gate, and that made Sydney Harbour. Entering Sydney by sea, you
come, as the ocean does, through a narrow gate between two lovely
cliffs. Turn sharply to the left, and you are in a maze of blue waters,
fringed with steep hills. On these hills is built Sydney. You may follow
the harbour in all directions, up Iron Cove a couple of miles to
Leichhardt suburb; along the Parramatta River (which is not a river at
all, but one of the long arms of the ocean-filled gully system) ten
miles to the orange orchard country; along the Lane Cove, through wooded
hills, to another orchard tract; or, going in another direction, you may
travel for scores of miles along what is called Middle Harbour, and then
have North Harbour still to explore. In spite of the nearness of the big
city, and the presence here and there of lovely suburbs on the
waterside, the area of Sydney Harbour is so vast, its windings are so
amazing, that you can get in a boat to the wildest and most lovely
scenery in an hour or two. The rocky shores abound in caves, where you
can camp out in dryness and comfort. The Bush at every season of the
year flaunts wildflowers. There are fish to be had everywhere; in many
places oysters; in some places rabbits, hares, and wallabies to be
hunted. Does it not sound like a children's paradise--all this within
reach of a vast city?

But let us tear ourselves away from Sydney, and go on to Brisbane,
passing on the way through Kurringai Chase, one of the great National
Parks of New South Wales; along the fertile Hawkesbury and Hunter
valleys, which grow Indian corn and lucerne, and oranges and melons, and
men who are mostly over six feet high; up the New England Mountains,
through a country which owes its name to the fact that the high
elevation gives it a climate somewhat like that of England; then into
Queensland along the rich Darling Down studde