From Mr.Roe's report the country was low and of unpromising appearance.

The river took its course by a very tortuous channel through a low country: for two or three miles from the entrance its banks are overrun with dense forests of mangroves; but beyond this they are superseded by red earthy cliffs, on which was growing abundance of the Hibiscus tiliaceus.

Further back the country is open and grassy, upon which a stunted eucalyptus is common; here Mr.
Cunningham found two species of grevillea, and the sago palm (Cycas media) which also grows near the mouth of the river, above which the Seaforthia elegans occasionally raised its towering head, and with its picturesque foliage served to vary and enrich the scene.
Mr.Cunningham, in return for the plants he collected, sowed peach and apricot stones in many parts near the banks.
The river is generally very shallow, but at nine miles from the mouth the water is fresh.

At the place where the party turned back the width was not more than six yards.

On their return they examined another arm on the north side, which proving inconsiderable, and the evening being far advanced, they did not delay to examine it.
July 10.
On the 10th our boat was launched and preparations were made for leaving the place which has afforded us so good an opportunity of repairing our defects.
The basis of the country in the vicinity of this river is evidently granitic; and, from the abrupt and primitive appearance of the land about Cape Tribulation and to the north of Weary Bay, there is every reason to suppose that granite is also the principal feature of those mountains; but the rocks that lie loosely scattered about the beaches and surface of the hills on the south side of the entrance are of quartzose substance; and this likewise is the character of the hills at the east end of the long northern beach, where the rocks are coated with a quartzose crust, that in its crumbled state forms a very unproductive soil.