Certainly this was not the plan that had been anticipated by the promoters and organisers.

We have now, at this stage, the spectacle of the main body loitering on the outskirts of the settled districts, four men killing time on the banks of Cooper's Creek, and the leader and three others scampering across the continent, all four of them utterly inexperienced in bushcraft.
As might have been expected the results of the journey are most barren: Wills's diary is sadly uninteresting, and Burke made only a few scanty notes, at the end of which he writes: "28th March.

At the conclusion of report it would be as well to say that we reached the sea, but we could not obtain a view of the open ocean, although we made every endeavour to do so." Shortly condensing Wills's diary, we gather the following account of their route.

The first point they intended to reach was Eyre's Creek, but before arriving at it, they discovered a fine watercourse coming from the north, which took them a long distance in the direction they desired to follow.

This watercourse, which McKinlay afterwards called the Mueller, began in time to lead their steps too much to the eastward, in which direction lay its source.