Their position was now nearly desperate, the southerly winds had set in, they had a surf-beaten shore to coast along, and no food of any sort worth mentioning, added to which, as may be well supposed, they were all weak and exhausted.
There was nothing for it, however, but to put out to sea again, and they managed to reach Gautheaume Bay on the 31st of March; in attempting a landing, the boat Grey was in was dashed on a rock, and the other boat too received such great damage that it was impossible to repair either of them. Nothing was now left, but to walk to Perth, and so wearied had the men become of fighting with the wind and sea, that they even welcomed this hazardous prospect as a change. They were about three hundred miles from the Swan River and had twenty pounds of damaged flour, and one pound of salt pork per man, to carry them there.
Soon after starting, a diversity of opinion sprang up about the best mode of progressing. Grey wished to get over as much ground as possible while their strength held out; most of the men, however, were in favour of proceeding slowly, taking constant rests. This feeling increased so much that, when within two hundred miles of Perth, Grey found it necessary to take with him some picked men, and push on, leaving the others to follow at their leisure. He reached Perth after terrible suffering and privation, and a relief party was at once sent out, but they only found one man, who had left the others, thinking they were travelling too slow. Meanwhile, Walker, the second in charge, had come into Perth, and related that, being the strongest, he had pushed on in order to get relief sent back to the remainder. Another party, under Surveyor-General Roe, left in search, and after some trouble in tracking the erratic wanderings of the unfortunates, came upon them hopelessly gazing at a point of rocks, that stopped their march along the beach, not having sufficient strength left to climb it. They had been then three days without any water but sea water, and a revolting substitute, which they still had in their canteens. Poor young Smith, a lad of eighteen was dead. [ See Appendix.] He had lain down and died two days before they were found. He was buried in the wilderness.
During these two expeditions Grey had faced death in every shape, and shown great powers of endurance, but the results of all his toil were but meagre, and of no very great importance. He had crossed and named the rivers running into the west coast, between where he abandoned his boats and the Moore River, but in the state he was in he knew little more than the fact that they were there, having neither strength nor resources to follow them up and determine their courses. Grey claims the discovery of the Gascoyne, Murchison, Hutt, Bower, Buller, Chapman, Greenough, Irwin, Arrowsmith, and Smith Rivers. This disastrous journey may be said to have concluded his services to Australia as an explorer, although he afterwards, when Governor of South Australia, made an excursion to the south-east, but it was through comparatively stocked and well-known country in the neighbourhood of the Glenelg and Mount Gambier. Before being appointed Governor of South Australia, he was Acting Government Resident at Albany, King George's Sound.
Grey's mishaps, and the straits to which he reduced his party by his occasional want of forethought and precaution, show plainly that enthusiasm, courage, and a generous spirit of self-sacrifice are not the only requisites in an explorer, more important even, being the long training and teaching of experience.
Grey had given a very glowing description of the fertile appearance of a portion of the country he passed through, and some of the colonists were eager to make use of such a promising district. The schooner CHAMPION was therefore directed to examine the coast and see if any of the rivers had navigable entrances. Mr. Moore, after whom the Moore River was named, was on board of the vessel, but no entrance was effected, although the party rather confirmed Grey's report. Captain Stokes, of the BEAGLE, however, soon after made a thorough examination of this part of the coast, and his report was so unfavourable that its immediate settlement was postponed.
It follows now, that the unexplored country west of the Darling being so much sooner reached from Adelaide than from Sydney, the former town became the point of departure from which, in future, the expeditions for the interior started.
But the rush for country, and the constant influx of stock from the mother colony, led to a series of petty explorations being continually carried on throughout the rapidly-rising district south and east of the Murray. Some of these were undertaken in quest of new runs, others in order to find the best and shortest stock routes; and the record of most of them is only preserved in the memoirs Of personal friends of the pioneers.
Edward John Eyre, who afterwards made the celebrated journey to Western Australia round the head of the Great Bight, began his bush experiences in this way. Messrs. Hawdon, Gardiner and Bonney, also about the same time, made various trips from New South Wales to Port Phillip, and from thence to Adelaide, and many minor discoveries were the result of those journeys. The he outflow and courses of rivers being determined, and the speculations of their first discoveries corrected or confirmed; as instance of this, may be mentioned the discovery of Lake Hindmarsh, which receives the Wimmera, River, the course of which had puzzled Mitchell when he discovered it in July, 1836.
Eyre left Port Phillip for Adelaide early in 1838. The usual course had been to strike to the Murray, and then to follow that river down. He intended to try a straighter route, and for a time did well; but, at last, finding himself in a tract of dry country, across which he could not take the cattle with safety, he determined to follow the Wimmera north, thinking it would take him on to the banks of the Murray, and would probably turn out to be the Lindsay junction of Sturt. From Mitchell's furthest point he traced it some considerable distance to the north-west, and at last found its termination in a large swampy lake, which he named Lake Hindmarsh, after the first Governor of South Australia. From this lake he found no outlet; so, leaving his cattle, and taking with him two men, he made an effort to reach the Murray. But the country was covered with an almost impenetrable scrub, and as there was neither grass nor water for the horses, he was forced to turn back, reaching his camp only after a weary tramp on foot, the horses having died. According to Eyre's chart, they were within five and twenty miles of the Murray when they turned back. Eyre was thus forced to retrace his steps and make for the nearest available route to the Murray, and follow that river down.