Johns River

12-18 October 1818

Extracts from John Oxley's journal

October 12 - We quitted Port MacQuarie at an early hour on our course homewards with all those feelings that word even in the wilds of Australia can inspire. After travelling near fifteen miles we stopped at the extremity of a sandy beach on a point of good land with an excellent spring of water rising on it, about four miles north of the northernmost of the Three Brothers.

Two of our remaining three dogs had been for the last two days deprived of the use of their limbs: one dies this morning … We conjecture that something they had eaten in the woods must have caused so universal a paralysis.

October 13 - Crossing the point of land on which we had been encamped we came to a sandy beach on which we travelled three miles and a half. At the end of it was an opening safe for boats into an extensive lake. The lake formed a large basin with a deep channel which, as it approached the base of the northern Brother narrowed into a river-like form, and in the course of a mile it again expanded from the north-north-west to the south-west.

To the southward and south-west the lake extended along apparently the same description of country, nearly to the western base of the Second Brother.· On the lake were a great number of black swans, ducks· etc.

October 15 - A party was sent back early this morning this morning to secure the canoe while we examined the river. The people returned in the course of the forenoon unsuccessful, as the natives had removed it with all their effects in the course of the night, throwing down and destroying their guniahs or bark huts. We lost no time in returning part of the way to the entrance into the haven (which we named after Lord Camden) where we proposed to construct a canoe. The natives seem very numerous, but are shy: we saw many large canoes on the lake, one of which would be quite sufficient for our purposes.

October 18 On Friday we returned to the entrance of the haven.· From a point near the entrance several bearings were taken; and we also saw another large lake, or perhaps fresh water lagoon, under the southernmost of the Three Brothers.

We saw the large lake under the Brothers from a high point on the coast very clearly, and found that on the north it was bounded by the North Brother, and separated from the sea by a strip of low marshy land about three quarters of a mile wide. The lake I think is a fresh water one: it was named Watson Taylors Lake.· The country west and southerly of the Brothers consisted of low forest hills, and a range of hills of moderate height, the entrance of which bore west-south-west distant twenty or twenty-five miles ended near Cape Hawke, the country being to that range very low with marshes.

A strip of sandy·land half a mile wide bounds the shore on which is good grass and water. On the beach where we halted we found a small boat nearly buried in the sand, but quite perfect. It had belonged to a Hawkesbury vessel, belonging to one Mills, which had been lost some time ago, and the crew of which perished. We halted on the·beach, the South Brother bearing W.32.N, and the Reef N.53 1/2., and which we now extended near three quarters of a mile north and south and lying two marine miles from the shore. It appears dangerous, since in fine weather (as to-day) the north part of the reef only breaks occasionally.

October 19- Proceed on our journey: on attempting to cut off a point of land, we found that the low part of the country was an entire fresh water swamp, interspersed with thick barren brushes. We therefore returned again on the beach, and crossing nearer to· point in question found the remains of a hut, which had evidently been constructed by Europeans, the saw and axe having been employed on it. About four miles farther on the beach, towards Cape Hawke, our progress was stopped by a very extensive inlet, the mouth of which was nearly a mile wide.

After Oxley’s journey south from what is today Port Macquarie, Laurieton and Johns River, Governor MacQuarie dispatched a further expedition to survey the Hastings River with a view to the establishment of a convict settlement.

On the 18th March 1821, three ships arrived to start the settlement. These were the "Prince Regent" "Mermaid" and "Lady Nelson" under Captain Francis Allman.  The southern-most border of the new convict settlement was our Camden Haven area.