Around a year after his arrival, Murrant first settled in outback Queensland. After about a year, he adopted the name Harry Harbord Morant, claiming to be a member of the British nobility and the estranged son of Admiral Sir George Morant. During the next 15 years, he drifted around Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia. He gained a reputation as a boozer, a womaniser, a bush poet and as an expert horseman. He was one of the few who managed to ride the notorious buckjumper "Dargin's Grey" in a horse race that became legendary.