But it had kindled in him a high ardour for discovery, and fostered a stubborn resolution to carry through whatever he undertook.
He commenced his early explorations when in a position to do so independently, to the north-west of Swinden's country, in search of some locality called by the natives Wingillpin.

Not finding it, he came to the strange conclusion that Wingillpin and Cooper's Creek were one and the same, although he was now on a different watershed.

He also, at that period, seems to have entertained somewhat extensive notions of the course of Cooper's Creek, as in one part of his Journal he remarks:-- "My only hope of cutting Cooper's Creek is on the other side of the range.

The plain we crossed to-day resembles those of the Cooper, also the grasses.

If it is not there, it must run to the north-west, and form the Glenelg of Captain Grey." Now, although we know that Grey held rather extravagant notions of the importance of the Glenelg, even he would not have thought it possible for the Glenelg to be the outlet of such a mighty river as Cooper's Creek would have become by the time it reached the north-west coast.
Stuart's horses were now too footsore to proceed over the stony country he found himself then in, and he had no spare shoes with him.