Thursday, 7th June, 1838

I write, this evening, on board the Pelorus, an 18 gun brig-sloop of the Cruizer class, Captain Harding at the helm.

H.M.S Pelorus

Tomorrow we travel on board to Kingscote in order to inspect that ill rumoured location.

We have spent the past two days riding to the Murray River and back, in order to inspect the possibilities of the land along the South Coast. 

Mrs Hindmarsh, I need scarcely say, is enamoured of the countryside and rates it, if not quite so highly as Boston Bay, then certainly higher than Adelaide and spent the two days fulsomely expressing her regrets over Colonel Light's lack of sense in siting the Capital where he did.

The country is certainly very pretty, although formed as it is as a thin strip of plain backed by a range of steep hills that would prove insurmountable to horse drawn carts, the only reliable communication between Adelaide and any township established on the South Coast would be by ship and therein lies the problem.

The current anchorage at Rosetta Head is, as Johnny learnt through hard experience, not worth a damn. The anchorage at the private whaling station in what Captain Crozier named "Victor Harbor", seems protected, but I am not convinced. Everything else we saw seemed either too small, too shallow or too rough to be of much use as a working port. And everywhere in between has the Southern Ocean thundering in and making much of the coast impossible.

My wife was in  raptures yesterday evening and this morning when we were at the Murray River lakes, opposite Johnny's island. "There's your port!" she pronounced, emphatically.

 For a moment I did not quite understand what she meant, but as she explained further I came to see the details of her plan. All that was needed was to land goods at Sydney Cove, bring them overland to a convenient point on the river and then sail them down the river to a township on the lakes, where they could be finally delivered.

When I pointed out that, as a solution to bringing goods up from Port Adelaide or Glenelg, bringing them halfway across the continent seemed impractical at best, I was told that I lacked "imagination" and "resolve". When I spoke of the costs involved I was accused of being a "penny pinching, miserly, niggard" which seemed harsh.

Imagination I may indeed lack, but I am not so incapable that I cannot imagine the response to such a plan back in London.

Tomorrow we set out for Kingscote, land of failed Mullberry groves, poxed sealers and Lutherans. No doubt we will have experiences to remember.