He resolved to cease trying to follow the river through this water-logged country, and determined to strike out on a direct course to the south coast in the neighbourhood of Cape Northumberland.

In this way he hoped to cross any river that these dreary marshes and swamps gave birth to, and that found an outlet into the Southern Ocean, between Spencer's Gulf and Cape Otway.
This resolve was at once carried out.

The boats were hauled up and secured together; all unnecessary articles were abandoned to suit the reduced means of transit; and at nine o'clock on May 18th they said farewell to this weary river and started to encounter fresh troubles under another guise.

Instead of travelling in a superfluity of water they now found themselves straitened by drought, and the work began to tell upon the horses.

Scrub, too, that besetting hindrance of so many Australian explorers, began to impede their onward path.