Northwest expedition to the Liverpool Plains

17th June 1825

During the winter months of 1825, (from 29th March to 17th June 1825,) another expedition was undertaken to the northwest.

Mr Cunningham left Parramatta the latter end of March, and crossing the Nepean river at Richmond, proceeded northerly towards the Wollomby, one of the southern feeders of the Hunter; from thence his course was altered more to the northwest, to Mount Danger, whose base he skirted, and, proceeding on the same course, he crossed his route of 1823, and made for Pandora’s Pass.

From thence he descended into Liverpool plains, where, from the rainy weather, the extremely level country he was traversing had become a continuity of bogs and marshes: he experienced considerable inconvenience. He persevered in his progress across these extensive flats, and reached a more elevated country on the northern side of the plains; from thence he continued his route up Camden Valley to Dunlop’s Table Head, lat. 30° 47′ S., long. 150° E., when, finding from the dip of the country, that [p294] all further progress to the westward, northward, or north-eastward was impracticable – from the low flat country being under water – he halted for a couple of days to rest his packhorses, and take the necessary bearings from this his furthest point of progress northward.

On the 18th of May he commenced his return journey, and arrived safely at Bathurst on the 7th of June, where he rested a week, and reached Parramatta on the 17th having completed , a circuitous tour of seven hundred miles. ¹

1. Source: Robert Heward’s Biographical Sketch of Allan Cunningham[↩]