The Victoria River is a river in the

bioregion A bioregion is a geographical area, on land or at sea, defined not by administrative boundaries, but by distinct characteristics such as plant and animal species, ecological systems, soils and landforms, Human settlement, human settlements, and ...

of Victoria Bonaparte in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

of Australia. It flows for from its source south of the Judbarra / Gregory National Park to the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf in the

Timor Sea The Timor Sea (, , or ) is a relatively shallow sea in the Indian Ocean bounded to the north by the island of Timor with Timor-Leste to the north, Indonesia to the northwest, Arafura Sea to the east, and to the south by Australia. The Sunda Tr ...

History

On 12 September 1819, Philip Parker King came to the mouth of the Victoria and, twenty years later, in 1839, Captain J. C. Wickham arrived at the same spot in and named the river after

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

. Crew members of the Beagle followed the river upstream into the interior for more than . In August 1855 Augustus Gregory sailed from Moreton Bay and at the end of September reached the estuary of the Victoria River. He sailed up the river and carried out extensive exploration. In 1847 Edmund Kennedy went on an expedition to trace the route of the "River Victoria" of Thomas Mitchell with a view to finding whether there was a practical route to the

Gulf of Carpentaria The Gulf of Carpentaria is a sea off the northern coast of Australia. It is enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea, which separates Australia and New Guinea. The northern boundary ...

. This "River Victoria" was later renamed the Barcoo River.

Location and features

Flowing for from its source, south of the Judbarra / Gregory National Park, until it enters Joseph Bonaparte Gulf in the

, the Victoria River is the longest singularly named permanent river in the Northern Territory. It is the second longest permanent river in the Northern Territory, as defined by international standards, the longest being the Katherine/Daly River. Important wetlands are found in the lower reaches of the river with forming suitable habitat for waterfowl breeding colonies and roosting sites for migratory shorebirds. Large areas of rice-grass floodplain grasslands are also found along the river. Part of the area adjoining the river mouth has been identified as the Legune (Joseph Bonaparte Bay) Important Bird Area because of its importance for

waterbird A water bird, alternatively waterbird or aquatic bird, is a bird that lives on or around water. In some definitions, the term ''water bird'' is especially applied to birds in freshwater ecosystems, although others make no distinction from seabi ...

Tributaries

The river has 56

tributaries A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream ('' main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which the ...

including the Camfield River, Wickham River, Battle Creek, Angalarri River, Gidyea Creek, and Armstrong River. The river also flows through several waterholes, such as Catfish waterhole and Four Mile Waterhole. It has a mean annual outflow of ,

Cattle stations

Several large cattle stations are found along the length of the river, including Riveren where the river originates, Victoria River Downs, Coolibah Station, and Wave Hill Station, which is known for the historic strike known as the " Wave Hill walk-off" in the 1960s to the 1970s.

Eponyms

A species of turtle, '' Emydura victoriae'', is named after the Victoria River.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Victoria", p. 275).

Footnotes

References

{{Authority control Rivers of the Northern Territory