AustLit

In late 1837 reports were received in Sydney of a shortage of stock in the new colony of South Australia. Overland cattle drives began in January 1838 first by Hawdon and Bonney then by Edward John Eyre. Charles Sturt followed at the end of April 1838 arriving on the 8th May at the point where the explorers Hume and Hovell, in 1824, had crossed the Hume River near present day Albury. On 22 May he set out with 300 cattle and took a different route to Hawdon and Bonney, and Eyre. He travelled the northern bank of the river tracing and mapping it's course and recording the rivers and creeks entering into it at its junction with the Murrumbidgee, proving that the Hume and the Murray were the same river.

On 27th August the cattle drive arrived at Mt Barker in South Australia. Sturt travelled on to Adelaide where he was given a public dinner on 7th September. At the dinner he spoke of his journey and his impressions of the country he had visited including the limitations of Encounter Bay as an alternative harbour. Almost immediately after his arrival in Adelaide he left for a short expedition to Encounter Bay and assessed it as unnavigable. His assessment led to the colonial adminsitration affirming the site of Adelaide as the capital. On 16th October Sturt returned via the Hope to New South Wales.

Sturt wrote an account of his expedition in a letter, dated, Adelaide, 29 August 1838, to George Stephen, the acting Governor of South Australia. The letter was published in the South Australian newspaper the Southern Australian on 8 September 1838 (3) and republished in colonial newspapers including the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser.

Source: 'Sturt's Forgotten Journeys of 1838'. Charles Sturt Museum. Web. 30/06/2014; 'Charles Sturt'. Charles Sturt University. Web. 30/06/2014

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