The initial journey took five months. His Quaker ministry, assisted by his companion and secretary, George Washington Walker (1800–1859), began immediately with the crew which was prone to drunkenness and violence. The missionaries arrived at Hobart in February 1832, and they spent the next six years journeying all over the then settled districts of Tasmania, New South Wales, and as far north as the site of Brisbane. They visited Port Phillip in 1837, and the states of South Australia and Western Australia just before they left.