European land exploration of Australia
A number of these explorers are very well known, such as Burke and Wills who are well known for their failed attempt to cross the interior of Australia, as well as Hamilton Hume and Charles Sturt.
[2] On 13 November 1813 Governor Lachlan Macquarie sent Government Surveyor, George Evans, across the Blue Mountains to confirm the findings of Blaxland's exploration party.
The first road to cross the Blue Mountains was 12 feet (3.7 m) wide by 101+1⁄2 miles (163.3 km) long, built between 18 July 1814 to 14 January 1815 using 5 freemen, 30 convict labourers and 8 soldiers as guards.
Governor Macquarie surveyed the finished road in April 1815,[5] and as a reward Cox was awarded 2,000 acres (810 ha) of land near what is now Bathurst.
As the exploring party travelled westward the country surrounding the rising river was found to be increasingly inundated.
After retracing their route for a short distance they then proceeded in a south-westerly direction, intending to travel overland to the southern Australian coastline.
He wrote that he had passed that day "over a very beautiful country, thinly wooded and apparently safe from the highest floods..." Later in 1818 Oxley and his men explored the Macquarie River at length before turning west.
Upon reaching the Hastings River they followed it to its mouth, discovering that it flowed into the sea at a spot which they named Port Macquarie.
Hume and Hovell decided that Western Port (in present-day Victoria) was a more realistic goal, and they left with a party of six men.
After discovering and crossing the Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers, they eventually reached a site near modern-day Geelong, somewhat west of their intended destination.
Matthew Flinders had noted this on his maps but viewed from the sea does not look like the outfall of a large watershed, but instead as a gentle tidal basin.
The mystery was solved by Charles Sturt, who in 1829–30 undertook an expedition similar to the one which Hume and Hovell had refused: a trip to the mouth of the Murray River.
Major Thomas Mitchell, the Surveyor-General of New South Wales, set out in 1836 to disprove Sturt's claims and in doing so made a significant discovery.
It had been established by the Henty family, who had sailed across Bass Strait from Van Diemen's Land in 1834, without the authorities being informed.
[13] From 1858 onwards, the so-called "Afghan" cameleers and their beasts played an instrumental role in opening up the outback and helping to build infrastructure.
Due to an unfortunate run of bad luck, oversight and poor leadership, Burke and Wills both died on the return trip.
