supplies despite the southern colony also suffering shortages, and their return journey found a less arduous route north following the flatter midlands route further to the east of the southward journey, which formed the route that the Midland Highway follows today, and was completed without having to cut down a single tree to allow the carts to pass. Surveyor Charles Grimes was sent out the following month to formally survey the route, and a road between the two settlements was established by 1808. Despite this initial expedition, exploration and road building into the interior was slow. Eventually the route would be later developed as the principal north–south road in the island, but it took several years to do so. As a result, the colony of Hobart Town used sea routes, even to the north of the island, as the primary means of transportation. By 1808, docks that survive to this day were constructed using convict labour, and vital buildings such as the government store were erected. The Commissariat's Store, which was completed in 1810, survives to the present, and is Hobart's oldest surviving building. The Bond Store, completed over a decade later in 1824, also still survives. Although the first arrivals were almost entirely made up of convicts and soldiers, it was not long before rumours of Van Diemen's Land began to attract free settlers, allowing Hobart Town to grow. But Hobart Town's isolation also led to a large number of 'undesirables' seeking to escape from former crimes, escaping the law, or just looking for a life of solitude finding their way to the fledgling town. The area around the docks was rife with crime and prostitution, and heavy drinking and fighting were common. The 1810s saw Hobart Town grow from a pioneer encampment into a town. Governor Lachlan Macquarie toured the Hobart Town settlement in 1811, not long after his appointment in New South Wales, and his suppression of the Rum Rebellion, whilst he was still brimming with energy and confidence. He was interested in the island, Hobart Town especially, but was disappointed at the poor state of defence, and general disorganisation that the colony had been left in at the time of Collin's death. Although some important infrastructure had been built, the town itself was still essentially a disorganised collection of crude wattle and daub huts that Macquarie described as "untidy". By this stage, the first Government House,