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| MURRAY RIVER HISTORY | |||||||||||||||||||
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Naming of the Murray
The boat trip, however, met with little success, as the channel was soon lost in reeds and a maze of sprawling marshes. After excursions in several directions the party on 1st January 1829 reached New Year’s Creek (subsequently renamed by Mitchell the Bogan River), and on 2nd February arrived at a large stream to which Sturt gave the name of Darling. To the great disappointment of the explorers the water was found to be salt, but they followed the river for about 66 miles before returning to the depot at Mount Harris. They next turned northward to investigate the Castlereagh River, discovered by Evans in 1818. This was found to be dry, but its course was traced for about 100 miles towards the Darling; the forbidding aspect of the country then determined Sturt to return, and the party proceeded homeward. The colonial government now began to think about the unexplored Murrumbidgee, and Sturt was entrusted with the command of an expedition to determine its course; his party included in particular George Macleay, a member of a family notable in Australian annals. The expedition left Sydney on 3rd November 1829 and reached the Murrumbidgee near the site of Jugiong. The junction of the Tumut River and the site of Wagga were passed, and many plains, one of which was named Hamilton after a staff-surgeon, were crossed from time to time. Sturt then attempted to connect with Oxley’s farthest point on the Lachlan; he actually reached that river but was unaware that he had done so. At the end of December he determined to take to the Murrumbidgee waters. The sections of a whaleboat having been carried from Sydney, these were put together, and another small boat (about half the size of the whaleboat) was built on the ground by the carpenter. Six men – Clayton, Mulholland, Macnamee, Harris, Hopkinson, and Fraser-were selected by Sturt to accompany him and George Macleay. On 7th January 1830 the boat journey began, from a spot five miles below the present township of Maude, with the skiff in tow. Fifteen miles farther on they came to the point where the Lachlan enters the Murrumbidgee. On the second day the skiff struck a snag and sank and two days were spent in recovering stores. For a few days the course was through reeds, but later the river ran through open country. On 14th January the boat shot out into what Sturt termed "a broad and noble river"; this , a few days later, he named the Murray, after Sir George Murray, an English statesman, Hume and Hovell, of course, had already discovered the same stream and named it the Hume, but Sturt considered his discovery to be a new river to which the Hume, Ovens and Goulburn all contributed. Then began a remarkable voyage down the Murray. It was a journey full of incident, especially when the travellers encountered aborigines. Just after the most dangerous of these encounters, on 23rd January , Sturt saw "a new and beautiful stream, coming apparently from the north", this, after a short journey of investigation he provisionally (and correctly) identified as the Darling, whose upper portion he had discovered in the previous year. Then the voyage down the Murray was resumed. The Rufus River (a
perpetual reminder of George Macleay’s red hair) and the Lindesay River (after
Patrick Lindesay (q.v.), an officer of Sturt’s regiment), were discovered and named,
and the great main stream itself was steadily examined. On 9th February Sturt
saw before him a lake which he named Alexandrina, after the princess who was to become
Queen Victoria. With the intention of rowing to Gulf St Vincent – where it was
possible a vessel awaited them – the voyagers made an endeavour to get the boat into
Encounter Bay, but all efforts were unsuccessful. A return by the route they had followed
was therefore imperative.
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Sturt’s first expedition, in which Hume accompanied
him, started from Wellington on 7th December 1828 – a time of drought
– with the object of tracing the course of the lower Macquarie River and extending
the boundaries of discovery westward. On 20th December 1828 Mount Harris, close
to Oxley’s terminal point on the Macquarie, was reached and a depot was formed; then,
while the main expedition attempted to follow the course of the Macquarie by boat, Hume
was sent forward on foot with two men to trace the river-channel some way northward.
