As far back as the seventeenth century, it seems likely that those aboard the Dutch ship, the Gulden Zeepaard, were the first Europeans to view land which today belongs to the State of South Australia. This was very much an accidental sighting, as the ship was blown off course by severe gales.

Areas of the Great Australian Bight would also have been sighted in 1792 by French explorer D'Entrecasteaux(PEP), and were explored in 1800 by British explorer James Grant as he sailed along the coast of Southern Australia. Matthew Flinders had carried out a detailed exploration of the area in 1782, reporting that the land showed excellent promise for settlement; but the immediate result was to bring sealing ships into the area.

Similarly, in 1830 Captain Charles Sturt, with a small party of soldiers and convicts, had rowed down the Murrumbidgee and then the Murray River to its mouth, reporting that land along the Murray appeared bountiful.

But it was not until rising unemployment and overpopulation in the New South Wales Colony that settlement of South Australia was considered.

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