• Burdekin River (1859)
• Cleveland Bay and Port Denison (1860)
• Bowen (1861)
• Burdekin River (1862)
• Cardwell (1864)
• Herbert River (1864)

A later expedition in 1873 extended between Mourilyan Bay to the Daintree and around Cooktown. Previously, Dalrymple had supported the violent suppression of a peasants revolt in Ceylon and occupied land on the Darling Downs.

On these expeditions north Dalrymple expected resistance and prepared well armed and coordinated landings aimed at capturing and securing sites for colonial outposts, bringing with him troopers of the Native Police. He and his men killed many Aboriginal people. From these coastal locations, colonists extended into the hinterland and beyond the Great Dividing Range. 

According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, "He hoped to explore the coast north of Cooktown but in 1874 was given charge of the government settlement at Somerset on Cape York."

Among the motivations for these expeditions was a shortage in global sugar supplies caused by the American Civil War (1861-1865). These regions are prized sugar growing areas. It was also hoped to establish livestock, and potentially connect telegraph lines to Singapore. These industries and gold rushes prompted colonisation in the area. A cluster of massacres in Djirbal country, between Townsville and Cairns, a broad fertile coastal area, suggests that conflict there was especially intense and prolonged.