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His second expedition, 1829-30, traced the Murrumbidgee River to its junction with the Murray River and thence to
the mouth of the Murray at Lake Alexandrina.
Commenting on his own commitment to exploring the interior of New South Wales, Sturt wrote:
"A wish to contribute to the public good led me to undertake those journeys which cost me so much. I should
exceedingly regret it if it were thought that I had volunteered hazardous and important undertakings for the love of
adventure alone . . . though in no case could a career more honourable than that of discovery have been open to me
when in 1827 I landed on Australian shores. I sought that career, not, I admit, without a feeling of ambition as
should ever pervade a soldier's breast, but chiefly with an earnest desire to promote the public good, and certainly
without any hope of any other reward than the credit due to the successful enterprise."
In 1838 Sturt overlanded cattle to Adelaide choosing to follow the Murray River rather than the more usual route
along the Murrumbidgee River in order to map the course of the Murray above its junction with the Murrumbidgee.
Sturt arrived in New South Wales in 1827 and made two journeys into the interior of the continent when he opened vast
areas of the Australian hinterland
In his first expedition in 1828 he followed the Macquarie River through the Macquarie Marshes to the Darling
River traversing the region of the Macquarie, Bogan and Castlereagh Rivers. Sturt wrote and published only two books - the Journals of his expeditions into Southern Australia and Central
Australia. The Royal Geographical Society of London published accounts of his expeditions into southern and central
Australia in the 1830s and 1840s. Articles and monographs since that time in a variety of sources have recounted and
assessed his life, his work and his influence, and have retraced his journeys.
Today, there is a university named after him there. The Charles Sturt University seeks to identify and collect
material on him, in original or copy. There is also much published material on him that can be found locally at the
Dorset Military Museum in Dorchester, and further a field with the Royal Geographical Society, in the Archives
Authority of New South Wales and Auckland City Library. Mary Anna Marten
also holds miscellaneous
journals, letters, drawings and charts.
Charles Sturt University