Here are some facts for this day. You are welcome to log your interesting, quirky or fun fact/s with your log.
On This Day - January 23rd
Australian History
1830 - Sturt's exploration party narrowly avoids a confrontation with hostile Aborigines.
Captain Charles Sturt was born in India in 1795. He came to Australia in 1827, and soon after undertook to solve the mystery of where the inland rivers of New South Wales flowed. Because they appeared to flow towards the centre of the continent, the belief was held that they emptied into an inland sea. Drawing on the skills of experienced bushman and explorer Hamilton Hume, Sturt first traced the Macquarie River as far as the Darling, which he named after Governor Darling. Pleased with Sturt's discoveries, the following year Governor Darling sent Sturt to trace the course of the Murrumbidgee River, and to see whether it joined to the Darling. Sturt followed the Murrumbidgee in a whaleboat and discovered that the Murrumbidgee River flowed into the Murray (previously named the Hume).
Sturt upheld a policy of kindness towards the many Aboriginal tribes he encountered, readily sharing food and gifts with them. On 23 January 1830, whilst traversing the Murray, Sturt's party encountered a group of about six hundred hostile Aborigines on sandbanks of the river. His men loaded their guns and prepared for battle, but disaster was averted when an Aborigine whom Sturt had befriended days earlier appeared from the bushes and intervened. Passing on by, Sturt discovered that the sandbank where the Aborigines stood marked the entrance of a larger river from the north. Sturt determined this to be the Darling, which he had discovered the previous year.