One was led by the governor of NSW, Lachlan Macquarie, travelling in his carriage from Sydney. The other party was from Bathurst, led by the famous explorer and surveyor general John Oxley, accompanied by the British government commissioner John Bigge. Bigge had arrived in NSW the year before, to report on all aspects of the colony.

The two parties met and inspected Lake Bathurst and Lake George, not far from what would one day be the site of the national capital. This event two centuries ago is generally taken as the opening of the area for European settlement, and is an important anniversary.

The journals and records of the early European explorers of Australia are a fascinating but neglected part of our literature. We should never say that they "discovered" various features such as mountains, lakes and rivers, as these were known to the indigenous people from the beginning. European explorers simply named and mapped them, often not bothering to record the traditional name.

1820 was an important year for the energetic Macquarie as he came to the end of his appointment. He had laid the foundation stone of St James' Anglican Church in King Street, Sydney, the year before, and he then founded the first official place of worship for Roman Catholics in the colony, the genesis of St Mary's Cathedral.

That year, he also decreed that that all riders, carts and wagons should keep to the left on the roads, a rule we still follow in the age of the motor car.

Then he decided to take a trip to the south to inspect what was called "the New Country".

The governor was then 60 years old and it must have been a most arduous expedition for him. His biographer Malcolm Henry Ellis describes the rigours of the trip with the makeshift road being hacked out of the bush just ahead of the party.

On October 16, 1820, he set out from the old Government House in his carriage, accompanied by Major Antill, Mr Meehan the deputy surveyor, the Reverend Robert Cartwright, Dr Reid and Mr Charles Throsby, together with servants.

Cartwright was the Anglican priest at Liverpool and they apparently picked him up on the way. Some members of the party would have travelled with the governor in his carriage, but others rode and there would have been a wagon to carry the vice-regal tent and other luggage.

They stayed briefly at Charles Throsby's home at Bong Bong. Throsby had played a large part in organising the visit of the governor to the southern districts. The expedition bypassed the site of the present city of Goulburn and reached the shore of Lake Bathurst on October 23. There they camped and awaited the arrival of another party coming overland from Bathurst led by John Oxley and commissioner Bigge.

From Lake Bathurst, Macquarie and his enlarged party travelled to a much larger lake, discovered only months earlier. The governor named it Lake George after the reigning British monarch, George IV.

In his journal, he describes the beauty and rich wildlife of the lake. Of course, he did not ask if the indigenous people of the area would have had their own name for the lake, which was apparently full of water at the time.

In fact, the local traditional owners were members of the Budawang tribe. Their tribal area ranged from Conjola in the north to Lake George in the west and to Moruya in the south. Many people think that traditional names are to be preferred and Lake George should be known as "Weereewa", but it is probably too late to change it now.

The traditional name of Lake Bathurst is "Bundong" but it was named by the governor. And so we remember the British secretary of state for the colonies who never set eyes on the place.

This rich Aboriginal heritage was clearly on the mind of the Reverend Robert Cartwright on October 29, 1820. On that evening, the whole party gathered for a service of Christian worship in front of the governor's tent on the shore of Lake Bathurst. A Celtic cross in stone now marks the spot.

Governor Macquarie recorded that Mr Cartwright gave a very appropriate sermon on the importance of "civilising the natives of the country and settling them in townships". With the language barrier, no one thought to try to ask the local people what they thought of such a plan. The British saw their campfires, but seem to have had no personal contact.

Cartwright was a native of Shropshire and was ordained in 1794. After study at Oxford and many years as a curate at Bradford, Yorkshire, he was encouraged by Samuel Marsden to come to Australia.

He was well aware of the disastrous impact of European settlement on those who had lived peacefully in the continent for thousands of years.

While Cartwright's vision was only a dream, his concern and compassion for the indigenous peoples remained a constant reality.

He had a simple but very strong evangelical faith, and constantly reached out to those on the margins of colonial society. He died in Goulburn in December, 1856.

Governor Macquarie had hoped to explore further and to reach what we know as the Murrumbidgee River but it was too far away.

He and his party packed up and began the long slow journey back to Sydney.

Little did Macquarie dream that one day, beyond the hills to the south of their campsite, a great city would rise, with a national parliament and spreading suburbs, including one named after him.