After a progress of three or four miles, Flinders and Bass found the entrance of Port Hacking, for the exploration of which they had made this cruise.

It was a much-indented inlet directly south of Botany Bay, divided from it by a broad peninsula, and receiving at its head the waters of a wide river, besides several small creeks; and was named after Henry Hacking, a pilot who had indicated its whereabouts, having come near it "in his kangaroo-hunting excursions." The two young explorers spent the better part of two days in examining the neighbourhood; and anyone who has had the good fortune to traverse that piece of country, with its grassed glades, its timbered hillsides, its exquisite glimpses of sapphire sea and cool silver river, its broken and diversified surface, rich with floral colour--for they saw it in early autumn--can realise how satisfied they must have felt with their work.

After a nine days' voyage, they sailed out of Port Hacking early on April 2nd, and, aided by a fine wind, drew up alongside the Reliance in Port Jackson on the evening of the same day.
The Reliance was an old and leaky ship.

She had seen much service and was badly in need of repairs.

"She is so extremely weak in her whole frame that it is in our situation a difficult matter to do what is necessary," wrote Hunter to the Secretary of State.