On July 27th, the party reached the bank of the Castlereagh, after fighting their way through bog, quagmire, and all the difficulties common to virgin country during continued wet weather.  As the direction they were steering was towards a range seen by Evans, and named Arbuthnot Range, their march was again interrupted by finding the new-found river this time running bank-high, having evidently risen immediately after Evans had crossed it on his return journey.  Here, perforce, they had to stay until the water subsided, and it was not until August 2nd that the river had fallen enough to allow them to cross.  The ground was still soaked and boggy, and the horses having had to carry increased pack-loads since the abandonment of the boats, the party suffered great toil and hardship in their efforts to gain Arbuthnot Range.  The Range was reached, however, and rounding one end of it by skirting the base of a prominent hill which they named Mount Exmouth, the harassed explorers at last emerged upon splendid pastoral country.

As Oxley, from a commanding position, surveyed the magnificent scene spread out beneath him —­ gentle hills separating smiling valleys, which in their turn merged into undulating plains all ripe for settlement —­ he must have felt that Fate had at length relented, and granted him a measure of reward as the discoverer of this beautiful land.  He called the locality Liverpool Plains, and the name has long been synonymous with pastoral prosperity.  Their journey to the eastward, which carried them through the heart of this rich and highly-favoured country, was now less arduous; and though the ground was still wet from the late soaking rains, the sun shone cheerily overhead, and the horses, revelling in the abundant rich grass and succulent herbage, began to recover their strength.  On September 2nd, they came to a river, which Oxley named the Peel; and here the expedition narrowly escaped the shadow of a fatality, one man being nearly drowned whilst crossing.  After leaving the Peel, Oxley still continued easterly, traversing splendid open grazing country.  He was now approaching the dividing water-shed of the Main Range, to the northward of that portion of it which is known at the present day as the Liverpool Range.  Here the deep glens and gullies with which the seaward front is serrated, began to interfere seriously with the direct course of travel, and at the heads of many of them there were cataracts and waterfalls which compelled the wanderers to turn away to the south; and on one occasion to revert almost to the west.  One of these striking natural features received the name of Becket’s Cataract, and another was christened Bathurst’s Falls.  Once again tempests and storms beset them, and this wild weather found them wandering amongst the steep ravines and dizzy descents of the mountainous range, seeking a way leading to the lowlands.

It was on September 23rd that Oxley and Evans, while searching for a practicable route, climbed a tall peak, and from the summit caught a glimpse of the sea.  It seems to have greatly impressed Oxley, and he writes in his journal of his emotions on the occasion:—­