Hawdon returned briefly to Sydney, but moved to Melbourne in 1837, and in August of that year he took up land near the present site of Dandenong.
Having beaten other aspiring overlanders, including John Hill and Edward John Eyre, Hawdon and Lieutenant Alfred Mundy left Melbourne on an expedition to Adelaide on 11 July 1839, travelling north-north-west to Expedition Pass, near present-day Castlemaine, and stopping at various squatter stations.
They reached the Hentys' station near Casterton on 25 July, camped at Lake Mundy (a freshwater lake which Holloway named after Hawdon's companion)[1] on 27 July, and then followed the tracks of the Holloway party, which they caught on 2 August.
He had a property at Heidelberg, named Banyule[3] and in August 1851 discovered a few grains of gold near the Yarra River.
His eldest daughter Emma Josephine married Robert Campbell on 2 December 1868 in Christchurch,[8] and his daughter Alice married Edward Wingfield Humphreys on 22 April 1869 at St John the Baptist Church in Christchurch.