Farewell Hill, from its being the termination of our journey in a
north-west direction, at least for the present, and proceeded up the
south bank of the stream."


The investigation of the south-west branch proving equally
unsatisfactory, Oxley determined to leave the river and strike for the
coast in the neighbourhood of Cape Northumberland, anticipating that on
this course he would intersect any river rising in these marshes and
falling into the sea between Spencer's Gulf and Cape Otway. The boats
were hauled up on the south bank and secured, together with such articles
as they could not take with them; and at nine o'clock on May 18th, the
journey to the coast commenced.

From having too much water the party now found themselves straitened for
want of it, and the journey, too, began to tell upon the horses. Thick
scrubs of eucalyptus brush, overrun with creepers and prickly acacia
bushes, soon helped to bar the way, and when they at last reached the
point of a range, which they named Peel Range, Oxley reluctantly
abandoned his idea of making for the coast in a south-west direction, and
turned north. Wearily he writes:--


"June 4. Weather as usual fine and clear, which is the greatest comfort
we enjoy in these deserts abandoned by every living creature capable of
getting out of them. I was obliged to send the horses back to our former
halting place for water, a distance of near eight miles this is terrible
for the horses, who are in general extremely reduced but two in
particular cannot, I think, endure this miserable existence much longer.