The mass widens out once more in the Liverpool Range, where the highest peak, Mount Oxley, reaches 4500 ft., and farther north, in the New England Range, Ben Lomond reaches an elevation of 5000 ft.
Some small expeditions were made from Bathurst, resulting in the discovery of the Lachlan, and in 1816 the first of the great exploration expeditions of Australia was fitted out under Lieutenant Oxley, R.N.
Oxley was accompanied Oxley.
On his return journey Oxley again crossed the Lachlan about 160 m., measured along the river, below the point where he left it on his journey south.
Continuing in a north-easterly direction Oxley struck the Macquarie river at a place he called Wellington, and from this place in the following year he organized a second expedition in hopes of discovering an inland sea.