We were here unable to approach the river, and therefore encamped near a creek, the banks of which were barren enough; however, as we had stopped for the benefit of the cattle it was of no consequence.  But although on this occasion they were absolutely up to their middles in the finest grass, the bullocks were not satisfied, but with a spirit of contradiction common to animals as well as men they separated into mobs and wandered away; the difficulty of recovering them being the greater, because of the numerous tracks of other cattle in every direction around us.  We recovered them, however, although too late to move that day, and it is somewhat remarkable to record, that this was the only occasion on which during this long journey we were delayed for so long a time by our animals wandering.  Had it not been for Tampawang, whose keen eye soon detected the fresher tracks, we might have been detained for several days.

As Mr. Browne had been on horseback the greater part of the day, I left him in the camp with Mr. Poole, both having been after the cattle, and in the afternoon walked out with Mr. Eyre, to try if we could get to the river, but failed, for the creeks were full of water, and our approach to it or to the nearer flats was entirely cut off.  So intersected indeed was this neighbourhood, that we got to a point at which five creeks joined.  The scene was a very pretty one, since they formed a sheet of water of tolerable size shaded by large trees.  The native name of this place was “Chouraknarup,” a name by no means so harmonious as the names of their places generally are.  We had not commenced any collection at this time, there being nothing new either in the animals or plants, but I observed that everything was much more forward on this part of the river than near Lake Bonney, although there was no material difference between the two places in point of latitude.  A meridian altitude of the sun gave our latitude 34 degrees 1 minutes 33 seconds S., and one of Altair 34 degrees 2 minutes 2 seconds S.

The night of the 6th Sept. was frosty and cold, and we had thick ice in the buckets.  We left our camp on a N. by E. course, at 8 o’clock on the morning of the 7th, and at 4 miles struck the river, where its breadth was considerable, and it looked exceedingly well.  The flooded state of the creeks however prevented our again approaching it for several days.  Shortly after leaving the river we turned more to the eastward, having gained its most northern reach.  About noon we fell in with a few natives, who did not trouble themselves much about us, but we found that their backwardness was rather the result of timidity at seeing such a party than anything else.  We traversed large and well-grassed flats almost all day long, and ultimately encamped on the banks of a creek of some size, opposite to our tents the floods had made an island, on which we put our cattle for security during the night.