Thursday Aug. 5: Since Monday I have been dividing my time between collecting and preparing plants and walking in and out of town in search of information on the Rocky Scrub and of ways of getting into it. Botanical efforts have y ielded me 46 numbers, practically all of them plants on the flood bed of the Coen River. Out from the river the country is so dry, and the hills so devoid of life in the dry season, that time would be wasted in exploring them while other things have to be done. The pursuit of information on the Rocky Scrub and its approaches has been diff- icult. Commercial interests in cattle raising and in gold are west of the Dividing Range. The Rocky Scrub is on the eastern fall. The consensus of opinion is that the Rocky Scrub is best approached from the head of the Peach River, a head of the Archer. Herb Thompson recommended this in the first place. Dick Holden, a Maori halfcaste, and Sweatman, both gold prospectors, and both half drunk for race week, say the same thing. This morning George and I called on old Maurice Shepheard, 73 years old and still in full possession of his faculties and carrying on a carrying business between Coen and the coast. He got back to town only last night after meeting a boat at the Annie River. Maurice confirms most of the information got from the less responsible citi- zens, and from him I have first hand information on the road and trail between Coeh and the old battery site on the Leo River, on the east fall of the Range and in the middle of the Rocky Scrub. It was on the Leo that Lakeland, who discovered and opened the Rocky Gold Field, had his mine and erected his battery in the late '90's or early nineteen hundreds. He hauled, carried, and parbuckled his battery through the rugged rainforest country from the coast to the upper Leo with the help of blacks; the job lasting over a year, according to Shepheard. In later years Sheppheard (check spelling) acquired the old Lakeland battery and moved it over the top of the Range and down on to the upper Peach. The new battery site was close under the Range and stone for crushing was packed over to it from the east side. Still later the battery was bought by Densley and moved to the Batavia River field. Our base for approach to the Rocky Scrub will be at the old battery site high on the Peach. From there transport will be by pack horses. We will get into the big Rocky Scrub in about six miles, and probably camp where two old trails part at a mango tree about nine miles from the Peach River base and on top of the Range. Until today I was under the impression that the Rocky River of the maps flowed through the middle of the Rocky Scrub, but now it seems that the Leo is really the ventral stream. Certainly the Leo (and perhaps the upper Peach) is the classic bio- logical locality going under the name Rocky Scrub. McLellan, with Bill Sheppheard as companion and guide, collected from the head of the Peach and across to the Leo and down the Leo to the coast in 1925. (McLellan collected his first tapian on the Peach on that trip, according to Bill Sheppheard). Darlington is said to have reached the Rocky Scrub from the head of the Peach in 1932. Miss Neuhauser went the same way in the later 50's but apparently she did not get far into the Rocky, or for very long, from her base at the old battery site of the Peach. This Neuhauser person must be quite a gal. A Jewish refugee from Hitler's Germany, she set up as a zoological collector in North Queensland and sold skins to Dick Archbold and others. She travelled with an unsuccessful gold prospector named Bill Scott who had a small team of packhorses, and knew his way around these middle parts of the Peninsula. Old hands declare that she let it be known that she wanted a man, was open to pay L200 to the man who would marry her and give her Australian