 He had numerous disputes with Robert Hoddle and was eventually engaged on a contract basis.Darke brought a wooden caravan from Sydney and set up camp with his family near Robert Russell's wood and daub hut on the south side of the Yarra River in what is now central Melbourne.The caravan, dubbed 'Darke's Ark', had two rooms and a piano, and was drawn by bullocks to locations convenient to his surveying duties around Port Phillip.