The Adelaide River is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of ...

in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

Course and features

The river rises in the Litchfield National Park and flows generally northwards to Clarence Strait, joined by eight

tributaries A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or 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 drain the surrounding drain ...

including the west branch of the Adelaide River, Coomalie Creek, Margaret River and Marrakai Creek, before discharging into its

mouth In animal anatomy, the mouth, also known as the oral cavity, or in Latin cavum oris, is the opening through which many animals take in food and issue vocal sounds. It is also the cavity lying at the upper end of the alimentary canal, bounded on ...

in Adam Bay in the Clarence Strait. The river descends over its

course Course may refer to: Directions or navigation * Course (navigation), the path of travel * Course (orienteering), a series of control points visited by orienteers during a competition, marked with red/white flags in the terrain, and corresponding ...

. The catchment area of the river is . The Adelaide River is crossed by both the

Stuart Highway Stuart Highway is a major Australian highway. It runs from Darwin, in the Northern Territory, via Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, to Port Augusta in South Australia; a distance of . Its northern and southern extremities are segments of Aus ...

, adjacent to the township of Adelaide River, and the

Arnhem Highway The Arnhem Highway is a 227—kilometre highway in the Northern Territory of Australia. It links the mining town of Jabiru, in Kakadu National Park, to the Stuart Highway at a point 35 kilometres south of Darwin. Upgrades The Northern Aus ...

near Humpty Doo. The Adelaide River is well known for its high concentration of

saltwater crocodile The saltwater crocodile (''Crocodylus porosus'') is a crocodilian native to saltwater habitats and brackish wetlands from India's east coast across Southeast Asia and the Sundaic region to northern Australia and Micronesia. It has been l ...

s, along with other wildlife including white-bellied sea eagles, whistling kites, freshwater crocodiles, bull sharks and

black flying-fox The black flying fox or black fruit bat (''Pteropus alecto'') is a bat in the family Pteropodidae. It is among the largest bats in the world, but is considerably smaller than the largest species in its genus, '' Pteropus''. The black flying fo ...

. Its lower reaches form part of the

Adelaide and Mary River Floodplains Important Bird Area The Adelaide and Mary River Floodplains are a region comprising the adjoining floodplains of the Adelaide and Mary Rivers in the Top End of Australia’s Northern Territory. It lies east of the city of Darwin and west of Kakadu National ...

. Waters of this river are also home to endangered speartooth shark and critically endangered largetooth sawfish.

History

Indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

including the

Warray The Awarai (Warray) are an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory. Language The Norwegian explorer Knut Dahl wrote down a short list of vocabulary of the Awarai language. Country The Awarai tribal lands took in some of territ ...

and

Kungarakan The Kungarakany people, also spelt Koongurrukuñ, Kungarrakany, Kungarakan and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory. They were called the "Paperbark People" by European settlers. Country Norman Tindale ...

owned the lands among the river for millennia. Lieutenant Fitzmaurice, under the command of John Lort Stokes, sighted the river on a boating expedition. The expedition was part of the Admiralty surveying ship HMS ''Beagle'''s voyage in 1839, and the river was named in honour of Queen Adelaide.

Gallery

File:Springende Krokodile im Adelaide River Mike Krüger 070509 1.JPG, Jumping crocodile at Adelaide River File:A140, Adelaide River, Northern Territory, Australia, saltwater crocodile misses bait, 2007.jpg, Croc whips tail to leap high but misses bait File:Adelaide_River_NT_Australia.ogv, A video taken on Adelaide River

References

Rivers of the Northern Territory Articles containing video clips {{NorthernTerritory-river-stub

Course and features

History

Gallery

See also

References