They made but little progress; the creek split up into many channels that ran out into earthy plains; and at last, when their one beast of burden gave in, they had to acknowledge defeat, and commenced to return.

After shooting the wretched camel and drying his flesh, the men tried to live like the blacks, on fish and nardoo, the seeds of a small plant of which the natives make flour.

But the struggle for existence was very hard; they were not expert hunters, and the natives, who were at first friendly and shared their food with them, soon out-grew the novelty of their presence, began to find them an encumbrance, and constantly shifted camp to avoid the burden of their support.
On the 27th of May, Wills went forward alone to visit the depot and deposit there the journals and a note stating their condition.

He reached there on the 30th and wrote in his diary that "No traces of anyone, except blacks have been here since we left." But while they were absent down the creek, Brahe and Wright had visited the place, and finding no sign of their return, and the cache apparently untouched, had ridden away concluding that they had not yet come back.
This was the note that Wills left:-- May 30th, 1861.

We have been unable to leave the creek.