[4] Finding that the land in this region had already been marked out by the 1859 expedition of George Elphinstone Dalrymple, Mackay's group turned to the north-east, crossing the range into a coastal valley where after several days travel, they came upon a large river.

They followed the river north then east through open forested country before encountering large grassed plains in the region where the town of Mackay and its suburbs now stands.

[5] The run-hunters spent the next few weeks marking out their future properties on these plains and neighbouring tracts of land while local Aboriginals camped at a safe distance.

The remaining members set out to return to Rockhampton and soon met up with the Dawson River pastoralist Andrew Scott who was travelling with Tom Ross and survivor of the Hornet Bank massacre and future Native Police officer, William Fraser.

[6] John Mackay had marked out large tracts of land on the south bank of the Pioneer River for himself which he called the Greenmount and Cape Palmerston runs.

Returning to the region in 1862 with a new venture partner in James Starr and 1200 head of cattle, Mackay faced insolvency within the first six months and was forced to sell out of these properties.

[17] In 1879, Mackay took command of the Meg Merrilies schooner which coasted largely between ports in Fiji and New Zealand,[18][19] and in 1881 he took charge of the steamer The Southern Cross which plied a similar course.

[20] It is important to note that there was another blackbirder by the name of Captain John Mackay who operated out of Queensland ports in the period slightly after the subject of this article had retired from his seafaring position.

One of his sons was Rainey Hugh Mackay who was a soldier for the British Empire in World War I[25] and who owned large acreages of land in Brisbane which was later subdivided into the suburbs of Salisbury and Moorooka.