Failing therefore to find the promised land of Wingillpin, although he had passed over much good and well-watered country, he turned to the south-west, and made some explorations in the neighbourhood of Lake Gairdner.

Before this, however, he had found and named Chambers Creek.

From Lake Gairdner, he steered for Fowler's Bay, and his description of some of the country he passed is anything but inviting.

From a spur of the high peak that he named Mount Finke, he saw:-- "A prospect gloomy in the extreme: I could see a long distance, but nothing met the eye save a dense scrub, as black and dismal as night." [Map.

Stuart's Routes 1858, 1859, 1860, 1861, 1862; Burke and Wills's Route 1860 and 1861.] From this point the party passed into a sandy spinifex desert, which Stuart says was worse than Sturt's; there had been a little salt-bush there, but here there was nothing but spinifex to be found, and the barren ground provided no food of any kind for the horses.
The state of affairs was becoming desperate with the little band, as their provisions were nearly finished; and though the leader was tempted to persist in the search for good pastoral country, he was at last forced to abandon the search and beat a hasty retreat.