"Bilboa's ecstasy at the first sight of the South Sea could not have been greater than ours when, on gaining the summit of this mountain, we beheld Old Ocean at our feet: it inspired us with new life: every difficulty vanished, and in imagination we were already home."
Now commenced the final descent, and a perilous one it was:—
"How the horses descended I scarcely know; and the bare recollection of the imminent dangers which they escaped makes me tremble. At one period of the descent I would willingly have compromised for a loss of one third of them to ensure the safety of the remainder. It is to the exertions and steadiness of the men, under Providence, that their safety must be ascribed. The thick tufts of grass and the loose soil also gave them a surer footing, of which the men skilfully availed themselves."
They were now on a river running direct to the sea, which was named the Hastings River, and which the party followed down with more or less trouble until they reached a port at the mouth of it, which the explorer, after the fashion of the day, immediately dubbed Port Macquarie. It is an unfortunate thing for New South Wales that such an absence of originality with regard to naming newly discovered places was displayed by the travellers of that time.
On the 12th of October, the wanderers made a final start for home, commencing a toilsome march along the coast south. Stopped and interrupted for a time by many inlets and creeks, they at last came upon a boat buried in the sand, which had belonged to a Hawkesbury vessel, lost some time before; this boat they carried with them as far as Port Stephens, where they arrived on the 1st of November, using it to facilitate the passage of the salt water arms. During the latter part of this wearisome journey, they were much harassed by unprovoked attacks by the natives, and one of the men, William Black, was dangerously wounded, being speared through the back and in the lower part of the body.
Oxley had thus, after innumerable hardships and dangers, brought his party, with the exception of the wounded man, back in safety to the settlements. True he had not fulfilled the mission he was dispatched on, but he had discovered large tracts of valuable land fit for settlement; he had crossed the formidable coast range far away to the north, and established the fact that communication between his newly discovered port and the interior was practicable. Oxley's expeditions were both well equipped and well carried out, he also had the assistance of able and zealous coadjutors, each or any of them being capable of assuming the leadership in case of misfortune. His travels may be said to inaugurate the series of brilliant exploits in the field of exploration that we are about to enter on.
In 1819, Messrs. Oxley and Meehan, accompanied by young Hume, made a short excursion to Jarvis Bay, Oxley returning by sea, his companions overland.
The era of the pioneer squatter had now commenced henceforth exploration and pastoral enterprise went hand in hand. North and south of the new town of Bathurst, the advance of the flocks and herds went on; Oxley's report may have somewhat checked a westerly migration, but the stay in that direction was not doomed to last long. Northward, to and beyond the Cugeegong River and the fertile valley of the Upper Hunter, southward, towards the mysterious Morumbidgee, which was now reported as having been found by the settlers, pressed the pioneers. It is not known who was the first discoverer of this river. Hume, in company with Throsby, must have been close to it during their various excursions, and in 1821 Hume discovered Yass Plains, almost on its bank. It was, however, destined to be the future highway to the undiscovered land of the west.
In 1822 Messrs. Lawson and Scott attempted to reach Liverpool Plains, Oxley's great discovery, from Bathurst; they were, however, unable to penetrate the range that formed the southern boundary of the Plains, and returned, having discovered a new river at the foot of the range, which they named the Goulburn.
In 1823, Oxley, Cunningham, and Currie were all in the field in different directions.