He later served as commander on Norfolk Island before settling in South Australia. But Sturt had a constant nagging concern. In 1840 he said "Over the Centre of this mighty continent there hangs a veil which the most enterprising might be proud to raise." Despite his ill-health Sturt was determined to raise that veil. In 1844 South Australia was on the verge of economic collapse and settlers hoped Sturt might find rich agricultural lands to save it. Sturt's mission was more personal. He believed there was an inland sea (something that did not fool his contemporary Ludwig Leichhardt who knew hot inland winds meant a sea was unlikely).

Sturt is sometimes confused for a different explorer - his near namesake John McDouall Stuart, a South Australian legend and perhaps an even greater explorer. Stuart learned at the knee of Sturt and Stuart was an important part of Sturt's final expedition. Stuart was a surveyor and hired for his mapping skills and he was among a party of 15 that set off from Adelaide in August 1844 with colonial orders to explore north to 28 degrees latitude, a journey followed by Ivan Rudolph's Sturt's Desert Drama (2006).

Sturt's deputy was Irish army officer James Poole while Dr John Harris Browne was the expedition medic. Others included head stockman Robert Flood, storekeeper Louis Piesse and Sturt's manservant George Davenport, who like many of them had worked with Sturt before. They took 11 horses, 32 bullocks, 200 sheep, five bullock drays, one light cart and one boat complete with sails and rigging, ready to sail that inland sea. They set off slowly west following the route of the modern day A20 towards the Murray.

They were accompanied by another well known explorer Edward Eyre who joined them at Moorundi. Sturt and Eyre had known each other since 1837 and Eyre was the first white traveller to cross the Nullarbor in 1840/1. Eyre and Sturt had a reputation for travelling unharmed through Aboriginal country, which was crucial as Moorundi was the edge of white settlement. As they passed the Great Bend of the Murray, Sturt was reminded of the loss of his comrade Henry Bryan who went missing here five years earlier, presumably killed by local people. Sturt knew similar dangers lay ahead of his current expedition.

They pushed on to Lake Bonney (now Barmera). Eyre parlayed with local Aboriginal people who did not molest the party as they stocked up on water. Instead they fed them with yabbies from the lake. The flooding river slowed down progress as they made it to Lake Victoria (NSW). Here locals skirmished with an 1841 party so again Eyre went ahead to make the peace. They found him holding court with a group of 70 people with Sturt noting they placed the "utmost reliance" on Eyre who they called Great Chief.

The party had a decision to make. The plan was to head off on the fork in the river north to the Darling. But to save time and distance Eyre suggested they take an anabranch, a shorter more ancient, but drier channel north. Progress was slow due to Poole's slow chaining of the distance. To make up time lost, Sturt agreed. The gamble would pay off, but there was sadness too, as this was Eyre's last day with the expedition and they had to continue without his diplomatic skills.

At Lake Victoria, locals told Sturt there was a river at Laidley's Ponds (near today's Menindee) that came from the north west. This news excited Sturt as this was the direction he wanted to travel. He sent riders ahead who found water in the Anabranch so they set off in mid September in heavy rain with conditions muddy and difficult. They were helped by native guide Nadbuck who had invaluable knowledge of the hostile area they were entering. They were delayed when Flood lost two fingers in a shooting accident chasing feral cattle. Sturt cut down the rations to enable his men stay longer in the field.

Though the Anabranch was in flood, it was desolate country beside it. Scouts found out the Anabranch suddenly dried up ahead. Sturt took advice to push east towards the Darling, proper, 30km above the confluence with the Murray. Though narrower than the Murray, it was verdant and beautiful though Sturt knew the heat left it barren in summer. At night he bolstered camp security though he held good relations with local owners, who remembered a massacre Mitchell left in his travels. Rough and rotten river flats played hell with the drays and prevented him from moving through known hostile areas as quickly as he liked.

The further north they went, the more Aboriginal groups they met. Nadbuck knew the protocols to keep the peace and Sturt described them as "a merry people". Just south of today's Pooncarie they noticed debris in the water and the following morning the river had risen 1.2m. In three days, the river overflowed its banks, invading the flats, making travel even slower. On October 10 they reach Williorara river at Menindee where they planned to move away from the Darling, much to everyone's unease.

Poole and Stuart set off on horses to seek a way forward. They crossed the Scrope Range to what was later called the Barrier Range and Poole described what he called an inland sea towards today's Broken Hill. Though Sturt thought it might be a mirage, the party headed forward. From Lake Cawndilla, this was new country to white eyes. When Sturt got to a peak near Broken Hill they had a clear view west and everything was "dark and dreary". His hopes of an inland lake or a river heading to the tropics were dashed. They found a profusion of beautiful flowers later named Sturt's desert pea, adopted as the floral emblem of South Australia. He also named an outcrop as "broken hill" in remembrance of a feature in Wales, and the name was later was applied to a larger area.

They relied on wells as they pushed forward but Sturt was worried: "In the barren and stony ranges through which I had to force my way, no spring was to be found." While crossing the tableland and hills, he found a high ridge which was the watershed. Colonial secretary Lord Stanley ordered him to find such features so Sturt named it "Stanley's Barrier Range". Later just called the Barrier Range, it was the border between the Murray-Darling system and insignificant drainage west to the desert. They found an important water pool they called Rocky Glen and struggled to find a way through the impenetrable Barrier. When they did, they were confronted by seif dunes, sausage-shaped sand ridges which were tiring for the horses to cross, with temperatures rising to 47C. Sturt successfully crossed into the Plains to the west, to confront another immense wilderness ahead.

The party waited at Morphetts Creek while Poole and Browne went on west to find water. They were searching for Lake Torrens but it was not where Eyre said it was. Browne suspected it might be a chain of lakes, proved correct a decade later. They returned after two weeks not having found water or an inland sea. Sturt sent Flood and another to search 70 miles north. They returned after three days saying they had found a creek 40 miles away with good grass. The entire party set off another two days later and arrived at Floods Creek early on Dec 10, 1844, four months after leaving Adelaide. Poole led another expedition north as the summer temperatures rose. They arrived back on Christmas Day having ventured as far as modern Tibooburra, and found water at Evelyn Creek near Milparinka. Sturt had to risk the 120km journey with only one creek on the way. The weather cooled on the 28th and they rode through the night. They found the site despite Poole's incompetence leading them the wrong way. But by the time they got there, it was greatly reduced and they needed to find new water fast. Finally on Jan 27 they found a new Depot site at an Evelyn Creek tributary at a place they called Preservation Creek with deep and sheltered pools. It would become their salvation and their prison.

Depot Glen was 16km west of Milparinka with plenty of water and a "romantic and pretty spot", according to Sturt. They recovered from illnesses and sought advice from Aboriginal groups. Sturt planned a new break-out group north. Six months after leaving Adelaide they crossed the now Queensland border immersed in sanddunes. They travelled 200km north finding no new water and then went back. They tried a second route that took them to Cameron Corner (where the SA/Qld/NSW borders meet) but found only desolate scrub and temperatures in the 50s. They were beaten by seif dunes and lifeless desert and returned to Depot Glen exhausted and thirsty, Sturt knew he was a prisoner of the Depot yet abundant birdlife convinced them water was near. A westward explore found nothing either. Months passed by and their water supply diminished without rain. A plan for Poole to lead a consignment back to Adelaide was put on hold when Poole fell seriously ill.

Finally in July they had their first rain in five months at the Depot and after two wet days the rising waters threatened the camp. Poole was well enough to travel on July 14 and led his group south. But a messenger came back to say Poole died two days later. The party returned to the Depot to bury him and Piesse led the Adelaide-bound party. Sturt led his group 100km to Lake Pinaroo and on July 28 named a new depot as The Park (later Fort Grey). Sturt penetrated into South Australia but found only barren country and no water. They found a dry Lake Blanche but no inland sea and little else to detain them so rode back to the Park. On August 18 they found Strzelecki Creek which Sturt named for a Polish explorer. Sturt's next fateful decision was to head north-west.

This was difficult flat country with no visible vegetation but billions of stones. Sturt called it a Stony Desert and it later became known as Sturt's Stony Desert. Ironically this feature was a result of Sturt's inland sea, only it was a pre-historic one formed millions of years earlier. They found shallow pools and wells that kept them alive and on the brink of disaster they found a beautiful creek on Sep 3 they called Eyre Creek after the "courageous and chivalrous officer". But from here the plain ran into the fiery dunes of the Simpson Desert. Close to the centre of Australia, Sturt ordered his men to return to the Park Depot, worried his retreat might be cut off. The Simpson was not crossed until 1936 by Edmund Colson using camels.

Sturt staggered back to the depot on Oct 1 subsisting on "an insufficient supply of food and drinking water that your pigs would have refused." He felt a failure and decided on one last tilt at the desert. He took Stuart and two others on a new journey leaving Oct 8 as temperatures soared to 38 degrees. Five days later they found a broad creek Sturt named in honour of friend Judge Charles Cooper. Despite its large body of water he called it Cooper Creek and not river because it wasn't running water but a series of sheets of water separated by dry creek beds. They camped 15km west of modern Innamincka near where Burke and Wills died in 1861. They followed the creek north until it disappeared into muddy puddles. They found a waterless plain and followed it north west before arriving back in the Stony Desert,

They passed Lake Etamunbanie (SA) and made it near modern Birdsville in Queensland where Sturt climbed a summit and found no attractive way forward. Sturt had to admit defeat on unraveling the mystery of the dead centre and "slowly and sullenly led my horse down the hill". The journey back starting Oct 21 was a race against destruction. They found just enough well water to make it back to the Cooper with the loss of only one horse. There they surveyed more of the creek, 250km eastward. They were surrounded by Wangkumara people who proved friendly and who told them there was no water eastward. With Sturt unable to determine the Cooper's source in the Channel Country tangle they retreated to the Park. But with the advance party running late, on Nov 6 the men at the Park decided to retreat back to Depot Glen with Browne leaving a note for Sturt.

Sturt's party rode into the Park a week later and read Browne's letter. Despite Sturt in agony with scurvy they set off again on Nov 16 riding all night and getting to Depot Glen at noon the following day after 18 hours of riding. The next problem was finding a way back to the Darling. Initial sorties along the most direct route were failures, so they gambled on the way they got there a year earlier. Sturt had to be transported by dray, leaving leadership with Browne. To get the 180km to Floods Creek they hatched a plan based on the Aboriginal "possum bottles", skinning a possum and turning it inside out using a neck for a water bottle. In the expedition's case they created a 'bullock bottle" capable of carrying 150 gallons, which was carried on ahead of the group. Browne rode on to Floods Creek which was losing water rapidly.

The men created a second bullock bottle, left their whaleboat behind and began their dash south on Dec 7. From Floods Creek they found further water south and Sturt pushed the team to Lake Cawndilla on Dec 19. They found the lake a parched expanse of cracked mud and the Darling was not in flood. Here they found Piesse with a rescue party with the all-important lime juice as an antiscorbutic. They began the descent down the Darling on Boxing Day and again they chose the Anabranch to avoid the dangerous tribes on the Murray-Darling confluence. Letters made it ahead of them to Adelaide and newspapers rejoiced at the "safety of the beloved Captain Sturt and his adventurous band".

Sturt had recovered to ride unaided into Adelaide. To avoid a welcoming committee he rode in at midnight on Jan 19, 1846 to embrace his wife. The official party rode in to a great welcome on Jan 28. Sturt retired to England and felt the "fearful desert" had defeated him but prospectors and selectors followed his routes. The Cooper became a practical way to the interior, though the inland regions rema

Charles Sturt was one of white Australia's greatest inland explorers whose reputation was secure even before he set off on his final epic journey in 1844. Like fellow British army officer Thomas Mitchell he served the Crown in the Peninsular Wars and also like Mitchell took a liking to exploring New South Wales when he arrived in 1827. His first expedition in 1828 followed the Macquarie River west to the Darling and a year later he followed the Murray to its mouth in Lake Alexandrina and his party made the arduous return journey against the current, in the heat of an Australian summer. Sturt survived the ordeal but his health never fully recovered and the experience left him near blind.

He later served as commander on Norfolk Island before settling in South Australia. But Sturt had a constant nagging concern. In 1840 he said "Over the Centre of this mighty continent there hangs a veil which the most enterprising might be proud to raise." Despite his ill-health Sturt was determined to raise that veil. In 1844 South Australia was on the verge of economic collapse and settlers hoped Sturt might find rich agricultural lands to save it. Sturt's mission was more personal. He believed there was an inland sea (something that did not fool his contemporary Ludwig Leichhardt who knew hot inland winds meant a sea was unlikely).

Sturt is sometimes confused for a different explorer - his near namesake John McDouall Stuart, a South Australian legend and perhaps an even greater explorer. Stuart learned at the knee of Sturt and Stuart was an important part of Sturt's final expedition. Stuart was a surveyor and hired for his mapping skills and he was among a party of 15 that set off from Adelaide in August 1844 with colonial orders to explore north to 28 degrees latitude, a journey followed by Ivan Rudolph's Sturt's Desert Drama (2006).

Sturt's deputy was Irish army officer James Poole while Dr John Harris Browne was the expedition medic. Others included head stockman Robert Flood, storekeeper Louis Piesse and Sturt's manservant George Davenport, who like many of them had worked with Sturt before. They took 11 horses, 32 bullocks, 200 sheep, five bullock drays, one light cart and one boat complete with sails and rigging, ready to sail that inland sea. They set off slowly west following the route of the modern day A20 towards the Murray.

They were accompanied by another well known explorer Edward Eyre who joined them at Moorundi. Sturt and Eyre had known each other since 1837 and Eyre was the first white traveller to cross the Nullarbor in 1840/1. Eyre and Sturt had a reputation for travelling unharmed through Aboriginal country, which was crucial as Moorundi was the edge of white settlement. As they passed the Great Bend of the Murray, Sturt was reminded of the loss of his comrade Henry Bryan who went missing here five years earlier, presumably killed by local people. Sturt knew similar dangers lay ahead of his current expedition.

They pushed on to Lake Bonney (now Barmera). Eyre parlayed with local Aboriginal people who did not molest the party as they stocked up on water. Instead they fed them with yabbies from the lake. The flooding river slowed down progress as they made it to Lake Victoria (NSW). Here locals skirmished with an 1841 party so again Eyre went ahead to make the peace. They found him holding court with a group of 70 people with Sturt noting they placed the "utmost reliance" on Eyre who they called Great Chief.

The party had a decision to make. The plan was to head off on the fork in the river north to the Darling. But to save time and distance Eyre suggested they take an anabranch, a shorter more ancient, but drier channel north. Progress was slow due to Poole's slow chaining of the distance. To make up time lost, Sturt agreed. The gamble would pay off, but there was sadness too, as this was Eyre's last day with the expedition and they had to continue without his diplomatic skills.

At Lake Victoria, locals told Sturt there was a river at Laidley's Ponds (near today's Menindee) that came from the north west. This news excited Sturt as this was the direction he wanted to travel. He sent riders ahead who found water in the Anabranch so they set off in mid September in heavy rain with conditions muddy and difficult. They were helped by native guide Nadbuck who had invaluable knowledge of the hostile area they were entering. They were delayed when Flood lost two fingers in a shooting accident chasing feral cattle. Sturt cut down the rations to enable his men stay longer in the field.

Though the Anabranch was in flood, it was desolate country beside it. Scouts found out the Anabranch suddenly dried up ahead. Sturt took advice to push east towards the Darling, proper, 30km above the confluence with the Murray. Though narrower than the Murray, it was verdant and beautiful though Sturt knew the heat left it barren in summer. At night he bolstered camp security though he held good relations with local owners, who remembered a massacre Mitchell left in his travels. Rough and rotten river flats played hell with the drays and prevented him from moving through known hostile areas as quickly as he liked.

The further north they went, the more Aboriginal groups they met. Nadbuck knew the protocols to keep the peace and Sturt described them as "a merry people". Just south of today's Pooncarie they noticed debris in the water and the following morning the river had risen 1.2m. In three days, the river overflowed its banks, invading the flats, making travel even slower. On October 10 they reach Williorara river at Menindee where they planned to move away from the Darling, much to everyone's unease.

Expedition map in Daniel Brock's To The Desert With Brock

Poole and Stuart set off on horses to seek a way forward. They crossed the Scrope Range to what was later called the Barrier Range and Poole described what he called an inland sea towards today's Broken Hill. Though Sturt thought it might be a mirage, the party headed forward. From Lake Cawndilla, this was new country to white eyes. When Sturt got to a peak near Broken Hill they had a clear view west and everything was "dark and dreary". His hopes of an inland lake or a river heading to the tropics were dashed. They found a profusion of beautiful flowers later named Sturt's desert pea, adopted as the floral emblem of South Australia. He also named an outcrop as "broken hill" in remembrance of a feature in Wales, and the name was later was applied to a larger area.

They relied on wells as they pushed forward but Sturt was worried: "In the barren and stony ranges through which I had to force my way, no spring was to be found." While crossing the tableland and hills, he found a high ridge which was the watershed. Colonial secretary Lord Stanley ordered him to find such features so Sturt named it "Stanley's Barrier Range". Later just called the Barrier Range, it was the border between the Murray-Darling system and insignificant drainage west to the desert. They found an important water pool they called Rocky Glen and struggled to find a way through the impenetrable Barrier. When they did, they were confronted by seif dunes, sausage-shaped sand ridges which were tiring for the horses to cross, with temperatures rising to 47C. Sturt successfully crossed into the Plains to the west, to confront another immense wilderness ahead.

The party waited at Morphetts Creek while Poole and Browne went on west to find water. They were searching for Lake Torrens but it was not where Eyre said it was. Browne suspected it might be a chain of lakes, proved correct a decade later. They returned after two weeks not having found water or an inland sea. Sturt sent Flood and another to search 70 miles north. They returned after three days saying they had found a creek 40 miles away with good grass. The entire party set off another two days later and arrived at Floods Creek early on Dec 10, 1844, four months after leaving Adelaide. Poole led another expedition north as the summer temperatures rose. They arrived back on Christmas Day having ventured as far as modern Tibooburra, and found water at Evelyn Creek near Milparinka. Sturt had to risk the 120km journey with only one creek on the way. The weather cooled on the 28th and they rode through the night. They found the site despite Poole's incompetence leading them the wrong way. But by the time they got there, it was greatly reduced and they needed to find new water fast. Finally on Jan 27 they found a new Depot site at an Evelyn Creek tributary at a place they called Preservation Creek with deep and sheltered pools. It would become their salvation and their prison.

Depot Glen was 16km west of Milparinka with plenty of water and a "romantic and pretty spot", according to Sturt. They recovered from illnesses and sought advice from Aboriginal groups. Sturt planned a new break-out group north. Six months after leaving Adelaide they crossed the now Queensland border immersed in sanddunes. They travelled 200km north finding no new water and then went back. They tried a second route that took them to Cameron Corner (where the SA/Qld/NSW borders meet) but found only desolate scrub and temperatures in the 50s. They were beaten by seif dunes and lifeless desert and returned to Depot Glen exhausted and thirsty, Sturt knew he was a prisoner of the Depot yet abundant birdlife convinced them water was near. A westward explore found nothing either. Months passed by and their water supply diminished without rain. A plan for Poole to lead a consignment back to Adelaide was put on hold when Poole fell seriously ill.

Finally in July they had their first rain in five months at the Depot and after two wet days the rising waters threatened the camp. Poole was well enough to travel on July 14 and led his group south. But a messenger came back to say Poole died two days later. The party returned to the Depot to bury him and Piesse led the Adelaide-bound party. Sturt led his group 100km to Lake Pinaroo and on July 28 named a new depot as The Park (later Fort Grey). Sturt penetrated into South Australia but found only barren country and no water. They found a dry Lake Blanche but no inland sea and little else to detain them so rode back to the Park. On August 18 they found Strzelecki Creek which Sturt named for a Polish explorer. Sturt's next fateful decision was to head north-west.

This was difficult flat country with no visible vegetation but billions of stones. Sturt called it a Stony Desert and it later became known as Sturt's Stony Desert. Ironically this feature was a result of Sturt's inland sea, only it was a pre-historic one formed millions of years earlier. They found shallow pools and wells that kept them alive and on the brink of disaster they found a beautiful creek on Sep 3 they called Eyre Creek after the "courageous and chivalrous officer". But from here the plain ran into the fiery dunes of the Simpson Desert. Close to the centre of Australia, Sturt ordered his men to return to the Park Depot, worried his retreat might be cut off. The Simpson was not crossed until 1936 by Edmund Colson using camels.

Sturt staggered back to the depot on Oct 1 subsisting on "an insufficient supply of food and drinking water that your pigs would have refused." He felt a failure and decided on one last tilt at the desert. He took Stuart and two others on a new journey leaving Oct 8 as temperatures soared to 38 degrees. Five days later they found a broad creek Sturt named in honour of friend Judge Charles Cooper. Despite its large body of water he called it Cooper Creek and not river because it wasn't running water but a series of sheets of water separated by dry creek beds. They camped 15km west of modern Innamincka near where Burke and Wills died in 1861. They followed the creek north until it disappeared into muddy puddles. They found a waterless plain and followed it north west before arriving back in the Stony Desert,

They passed Lake Etamunbanie (SA) and made it near modern Birdsville in Queensland where Sturt climbed a summit and found no attractive way forward. Sturt had to admit defeat on unraveling the mystery of the dead centre and "slowly and sullenly led my horse down the hill". The journey back starting Oct 21 was a race against destruction. They found just enough well water to make it back to the Cooper with the loss of only one horse. There they surveyed more of the creek, 250km eastward. They were surrounded by Wangkumara people who proved friendly and who told them there was no water eastward. With Sturt unable to determine the Cooper's source in the Channel Country tangle they retreated to the Park. But with the advance party running late, on Nov 6 the men at the Park decided to retreat back to Depot Glen with Browne leaving a note for Sturt.

Sturt's party rode into the Park a week later and read Browne's letter. Despite Sturt in agony with scurvy they set off again on Nov 16 riding all night and getting to Depot Glen at noon the following day after 18 hours of riding. The next problem was finding a way back to the Darling. Initial sorties along the most direct route were failures, so they gambled on the way they got there a year earlier. Sturt had to be transported by dray, leaving leadership with Browne. To get the 180km to Floods Creek they hatched a plan based on the Aboriginal "possum bottles", skinning a possum and turning it inside out using a neck for a water bottle. In the expedition's case they created a 'bullock bottle" capable of carrying 150 gallons, which was carried on ahead of the group. Browne rode on to Floods Creek which was losing water rapidly.

The men created a second bullock bottle, left their whaleboat behind and began their dash south on Dec 7. From Floods Creek they found further water south and Sturt pushed the team to Lake Cawndilla on Dec 19. They found the lake a parched expanse of cracked mud and the Darling was not in flood. Here they found Piesse with a rescue party with the all-important lime juice as an antiscorbutic. They began the descent down the Darling on Boxing Day and again they chose the Anabranch to avoid the dangerous tribes on the Murray-Darling confluence. Letters made it ahead of them to Adelaide and newspapers rejoiced at the "safety of the beloved Captain Sturt and his adventurous band".

Sturt had recovered to ride unaided into Adelaide. To avoid a welcoming committee he rode in at midnight on Jan 19, 1846 to embrace his wife. The official party rode in to a great welcome on Jan 28. Sturt retired to England and felt the "fearful desert" had defeated him but prospectors and selectors followed his routes. The Cooper became a practical way to the interior, though the inland regions remain difficult country that only its Aboriginal owners truly understand.