Having concealed the supplies landed from the cutter, Eyre sent the vessel back to Adelaide with despatches, and moved the whole of the men out to the pool of water that he had just found.

From this vantage point he made various scouting trips with the black boy, both to the eastward and westward of north.

The 2nd of September found him on the summit of an elevation which he appropriately named Mount Hopeless, gazing at the salt lake that he now thought hemmed him in on three sides, even to the eastward.

There was no prospect visible of crossing the lake, which seemed persistently to defy him, meeting him at every attempt with a barrier of stagnant mud.

There was nothing for it but to leave the interior unvisited by this route, and to return to Mount Arden.
He divided his party, sending Baxter, the overseer, with most of the men and stores straight across to Streaky Bay, where he had formerly made a camp, while, with the remainder, he made his way to Port Lincoln.