Carter), and was sacked on 31 December 1839 for being absent from duty. In 1840 Darke married Elizabeth Isabella Carter, sister-in-law to South Australia police inspector Alexander Tolmer. In 1844 Darke was named as the leader of a privately funded expedition to explore the country west and north-west of Port Lincoln and Spencer Gulf. On 12 April, he and three other men left Adelaide on the Governor Gawler and sailed for Port Lincoln. The party left Port Lincoln on 29 August to begin their exploration. Led by Darke, the party comprised Darke's friend and second in command, surveyor John Henry Theakston (d.1878), plus two men hired as tent-keepers and cooks. One was named James Howard, the other is unidentified. They travelled though an ocean of scrub to beyond the Gawler Ranges, Darke having found no land suitable for settling. The party began their retreat from this waterless area on 16 October. Final diary entry Darke's final diary entry was on 22 October: "Accompanied by the [three] blacks who were joined by nine others, I proceeded to the waterhole, about three miles, but more easterly than our course; and came about 2 o'clock to a large gritstone rock where I found abundance of feed and water on a plain about 200 yards wide by half a mile long, surrounded by thick scrub. The natives accompanied us until just before encamping. I gave them all I could spare for taking us to the water. They seemed very friendly disposed..." The diary continues in the hand of Darke's second-in-command, John Theakston, and describes how Darke was speared in the stomach and knee by three natives. His death is recorded by Theakston: "I here dressed the wounds of Mr Darke, and bled him, but found his extremities getting cold, and I informed him. I feared the event. At 10 o'clock he told me he was dying, that mortification had taken place, he was out of pain; he gave me his last commands and died at five minutes to twelve, quite calm to the last minute. I carried the body of Mr Darke to the Table Topped Peaks and buried him on a small grassy plain at the foot of them, in a grave five feet deep." Position of grave In a letter to The Adelaide Observer in 1891, a Mr A.J. Foulds stated: "In a hollow on the north-west of the most northern peak