Erskine Valley is a small, steep-sided, forested valley, containing the

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wid ...

Erskine Creek with several small

waterfall A waterfall is a point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in severa ...

s. About one kilometre long and broad, it lies between Mounts Lidgbird (to the north) and

Gower Gower ( cy, Gŵyr) or the Gower Peninsula () in southwest Wales, projects towards the Bristol Channel. It is the most westerly part of the historic county of Glamorgan. In 1956, the majority of Gower became the first area in the United Kingdom ...

(to the south), on the western side of the southern end of Australia’s subtropical

Lord Howe Island Lord Howe Island (; formerly Lord Howe's Island) is an irregularly crescent-shaped volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, part of the Australian state of New South Wales. It lies directly east of mainland P ...

in the

Tasman Sea The Tasman Sea ( Māori: ''Te Tai-o-Rēhua'', ) is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand. It measures about across and about from north to south. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer ...

. The valley is traversed by the popular hiking track to the summit of Mount Gower. It was named after Thomas Erskine,

Lord Chancellor The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. Th ...

of the United Kingdom from 1806 to 1807. A description of the valley by

Robert Etheridge Robert Etheridge FRS FRSE FGS (3 December 1819 – 18 December 1903) was an English geologist and palaeontologist. Biography Etheridge was born at Ross-on-Wye, in Herefordshire, the son of Thomas Etheridge and his wife Hannah Pardoe. After an ...

in 1889 reads:

Mounts Ledgbird 'sic''.html" ;"title="sic.html" ;"title="'sic">'sic''">sic.html" ;"title="'sic">'sic''and Gower are separated by Erskine Valley, or the "Between Hills", a deep and wide depression, running down to the south- west coast. Its descent is very rapid and steep, with more or less permanent water, the sides of the valley being everywhere covered with boulders and volcanic ''débris'', interspersed amongst the densest possible vegetation. The saddle at the head of this declivity, forming the connecting neck between the two hills, is very narrow, probably not more than twenty to thirty yards, covered with large boulders, and supporting a low, stunted vegetation and much under-growth, bearing testimony in the twisted and gnarled condition of the trees to the heavy squalls amid gales which pass across it, and of which we had a vivid personal experience during the night we were camped in this otherwise charming spot. Erskine Valley acts, in fact, as a kind of funnel, and reminded me much of the deep, long gulches with which the Island of St. Helena is cut up. The saddle cannot be far short of 2,000 feet above sea-level.

References

Geography of Lord Howe Island Valleys of Australia {{NewSouthWales-geo-stub