John McDouall Stuart - The Second Expedition

The Second Expedition

Soon after his return from his first expedition, Stuart applied for a pastoral lease at Chambers Creek. As the discoverer he was already entitled to a lease, but wanted rights to a larger area. As a bargaining chip in the negotiation process, Stuart offered to do the surveying himself and in April 1859 he set off with a party of three men and 15 horses. This gained for him the firm support and confidence of the Governor of South Australia, Richard Graves MacDonnell, himself a keen explorer. The Chambers Creek survey complete, Stuart explored to the north again, aiming to reach the border between South Australia and what is now the Northern Territory (at that time still a part of New South Wales). Although still well supplied with rations and not short of water, the expedition turned back about 100 kilometres short of the border because they had no more horse shoes (an essential item in that arid, stony region). Importantly, however, Stuart had found another reliable water supply for future attempts: a "beautiful spring" fed by the then-unknown Great Artesian Basin. He wrote: I have named this "The Spring of Hope". It is a little brackish, not from salt, but soda, and runs a good stream of water. I have lived upon far worse water than this: to me it is of the utmost importance, and keeps my retreat open. I can go from here to Adelaide any time of the year and in any sort of season. He returned in July with reports of "wonderful country"; an extraordinary description of territory that is now barely able to support a few cattle.

(The history of Australia generally, and of South Australia in particular, has many similar examples of initial optimism that proved unjustified. Explorers and early settlers often chanced to see an area during a rare good season and consequently assumed that it could be used for sheep, cattle, or even wheat. The inevitable return to normal weather patterns resulted in heartbreak and bankruptcy for the farmer, and destruction of the thin and fragile topsoil layer. Farmers who advanced into the Flinders Ranges in the good seasons of the 1870s were forced to abandon their new lands en masse during the drought of the early 1880s.)