Rowing Up The Adelaide

One of the great quests in early Australian geographical studies was the search for a major river which would be a highway from the coast to the far interior. It was confidently believed that such rivers must exist. If they could be found they would greatly facilitate settlement because access to the interior by water would be far easier than by tedious overland journeys.

The hopes of explorers were raised when they began working around the northern coasts, where rivers which appeared to be very large emptied into the sea. It was later found that these rivers were not very large at all in their upstream sections, once the tidal reaches were left behind, but that characteristic was unknown until the rivers were actually explored.

In July 1839 the men of the ship Beagle, commanded by Wickham and Stokes, found a large river entering Adam Bay, near the place which was soon after called Escape Cliffs because of a narrow escape which some men had from a confrontation with Aborigines.

Wickham and Stokes named the river the Adelaide “after her most gracious Majesty the Queen Dowager.”

Wickham immediately resolved to take two rowing boats up the river “to determine its possibilities.” Wickham and Lieutenant Emery (after whom Emery Point in Darwin was later named) set out in one boat, while the Beagle’s Mate, Benjamin Francis Helpman, took charge of a second boat.

The boats set out on 29 July 1839, and returned on 3 August. They had gone upstream about 130 kilometres, about as far as the Marrakai Crossing locality. They might have gone further, but the river divided into two streams. The easterly stream was too narrow to use the oars, while the southerly branch was blocked by fallen trees. In any case, the explorers were running out of food.

Stokes wrote (on the basis of what he was told by Wickham) “For thirty miles of the upper part of the river the water was fresh; while the banks were low … a circumstance very favourable for irrigation and the cultivation of rice.”

However, it was also noted that the land was very low lying. It appeared that water appeared to lie in some places for a long time, and “doubtless parts of this low land were periodically overflowed.”

On the return of the rowers on 3 August Stokes wrote “When they had penetrated thus far into the new lands of Australia, the explorers returned, having experienced those sensations of delightful excitement to which we have before alluded, and which naturally call forth emotions of strong regret in those who were denied a participation in the feverish enjoyment of discovery.”

As the Beagle left the Adelaide, Stokes pronounced it “the deepest river in Australia.” That was an important attribute to a mariners and colonist who would be supplied by sea, and it was a decisive factor in the choice of Escape Cliffs as a settlement site 25 years later.

However, the writings of Helpman proved to be most influential in later years.

Helpman wrote “The Adelaide is the largest and finest river known in New Holland … it has a clear navigable mouth, and ease of access for nearly eighty miles; it abounds with fish and wild-fowls. Its whole course, as far as we saw, is of a rich and fertile character … open and rich grassy plains.”

Most significantly, Helpman later compared the Adelaide with the Victoria River, which the Beagle’s men explored a few weeks later. In Helpman’s view “the general character of the land (along the Victoria), so far as we saw it, is useless and barren in the extreme.” That opinion was important when the respective merits of the Adelaide and the Victoria as settlement sites were being considered.

Helpman’s views later became known to the explorer John McDouall Stuart, who had the option of trying to cross overland to either the Victoria or the Adelaide. Helpman’s writings were undoubtedly influential in bringing Stuart to the north coast as opposed to the Victoria. Soon after, Helpman’s opinion was also important in the South Australian government decision to try to begin settlement in the Northern Territory along the Adelaide River, rather than on the Victoria as had been urged by explorer A.C. Gregory and others.

Thus, Helpman must be accounted an important figure in Northern Territory exploration and settlement history.