[1] Murphy was principally tasked to be in charge of stores at the Cape Denison base at Commonwealth Bay.
He led the supporting party (together with Hunter and Laseron), which had the job of laying down stores at intermediate points for the later expedition on sledges to the South Magnetic Pole undertaken by Bage, Webb and Hurley.
It was foggy on December 29 in the afternoon, after a fine morning, and about 3 o'clock it got very cold, when all at once an iceberg suddenly appeared, and there were lots of little pieces of ice all over the perfectly calm sea.
When we tried to got to the land marked on the maps by Wilkes, in 1840, all we got to was an ice barrier 30ft or 40ft high, extending for miles — a most extraordinary sight.
We had a two days' hurricane there, but hardly felt it, as we just kept under the lee of the barrier, but the snow, blowing off the top of this huge wall over the ship's mast-heads, was an indication of what the wind must have been like up there.
[3]Murphy lived for many years at a property that he owned at Mount Martha, Mornington Peninsula.