It was in the year 1827 that Cunningham accomplished his most notable journey of exploration, one which eventually threw open to settlement an entirely new area of country; country destined to mould the destiny of the yet unborn colony of Queensland, and afford homes for thousands of settlers. It was mainly by his exertions that the young community at Moreton Bay was able to stretch its growing limbs to the westward immediately after its birth, instead of waiting long weary years and wasting its strength against an impassable obstacle as had been the fate of the settlement at Farm Cove.
Cunningham started from Segenhoe, a station on one of the head tributaries of the Hunter River, whence he ascended the main range without any difficulty beyond having to unload some of the pack-horses during the steepest part of the ascent. He had with him six men, eleven horses, and provisions for fourteen weeks. He left civilisation, or the outskirts of it, on the 2nd of May, and on the 11th he crossed the parallel on which Oxley had crossed the Peel River in 1818, and once beyond that point he was traversing unexplored country. The land was suffering under a prolonged drought in that district, and most of the streams encountered had but detached pools of water in their beds, at one of which, however, his party caught a good haul of cod, which were such ravenous biters and so heavy that several were lost in the attempt to land them.
Travelling through open forest land, which was suffering more or less from the want of rain, Cunningham came on the 19th of May to a valley. Here, on the bank of a creek he encamped on "the most luxuriant pasture we had met since we had left the Hunter."
"We were not a little surprised," he says, "to observe at this valley, so remote from any farming establishment, the traces of horned cattle, only two or three days old, as also the spots on which about eight to a dozen of these animals had reposed.
"From what point of the country these cattle had originally strayed appeared at first difficult to determine. On consideration, however, it was thought by no means impossible that they were stragglers from the large wild herds that are well-known to be occupying plains around Arbuthnot Range."
This speaks volumes for the wonderful increase and spread of wild cattle in those days; Arbuthnot Range, first sighted by Evans in 1817, being already an acknowledged resort of wild cattle in seven years. Or it advertises the negligence of the stockmen who guarded the comparatively tiny herds of the period.
The dry weather had put its mark upon the country. Though the degree of aridity was much less than that afterwards experienced in Australia by the explorers of its interior, nevertheless conditions were sufficiently dry to compel the leader to exercise great forethought, and Cunningham determined to pursue a more easterly course, keeping nearer the crest of the range, where he was more likely to find grass and water. The country he passed through was inferior, but on the 28th he came to the bank of a river "presenting a handsome reach, half-a-mile in length, thirty yards wide, and evidently very deep." This river he named the Dumaresque, and it led him to the northward, through what he considered poor land, until the new-found river took an easterly direction, when the party left it, still keeping north. At the end of the month, after passing through much scrubby country, they were agreeably surprised to meet with a stream, the banks of which presented an appearance of great verdure. "It was a subject of great astonishment to us to meet with so beautiful a sward of grass permanently watered by an active stream, after traversing that tract of desert forest, and penetrating brushes the extremes of sterility in its immediate vicinity."
This was named McIntyre's Brook, and Cunningham writes that they had some difficulty in fording it on account of its extreme rapidity. The party continued on, now in a north-easterly direction, passing again through dense thickets such as they had formerly met with.
On the 5th of June, Cunningham, from a small elevation, had a view of open country of decidedly favourable appearance: "A hollow in the forest ridge immediately before us allowed me distinctly to perceive that at a distance of eight or nine miles, open plains or downs of great extent appeared to extend easterly to the base of a lofty range of mountains, lying south and north, distant by estimation about thirty miles."
This was Cunningham's first glimpse of the now world-famous Darling Downs. On reaching the commencement of the great plains, they came to the "bank of a small river, about fifteen yards in breadth, having a brisk current to the North-West." As there was deep water in the pools of this river, the men anticipated some good fishing, and they were not disappointed. Cunningham named this river the Condamine.