The South Australian Surveyor-General, Stuart's superior officer, was the famous explorer Captain Charles Sturt, who had already solved the mystery of the inland-flowing rivers of New South Wales, in the process discovering the Darling River, travelling the full length of the Murrumbidgee, and tracing the Murray to the sea.
It is alleged that he was a member of Stephen Hack's expedition of May and June 1857[REF] looking for grazing country north and west of Streaky Bay and a private expedition to Lake Gairdner with Anthony Forster (later to become editor of The Register) in 1858.