The Holroyd 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 w ...

located on the

Cape York Peninsula Cape York Peninsula is a large peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest unspoiled wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth’s last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupació ...

in Far North

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

, Australia.

Course and features

The headwaters of the river rise south of Mount White in the

McIlwraith Range The McIlwraith Range is a rugged, dissected granite plateau on Cape York Peninsula of Far North Queensland, Australia. Part of the Great Dividing Range, the McIlwraith Range covers about and lies about east of the town of Coen, and north ...

in the Great Dividing Range. It then flows westwards forming a series of braided channels and continuing through the uninhabited country until merging with the Kendall river near the Kulinchin Outstation and discharging into the Gulf of Carpentaria. The river is 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 drainag ...

including the

Kendall River Kendall River is a small river and tributary to the Coppermine River in the Canadian Northwest Territories that connects the Dismal Lakes to the Coppermine River. John Rae (explorer) had a base camp here in 1851. Based on data collected at a gau ...

, Sandlewood Creek, Station Creek, Potlappa Creek, The Big Spring, First Spring, Christmas Creek and the Kendle River. The catchment area of the creek occupies an of which an area of is composed of estuarine wetlands. A variety of landscapes are found within the catchment including tropical savannah woodlands, open grasslands, beach ridges, wetlands and

paperbark ''Melaleuca'' () is a genus of nearly 300 species of plants in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, commonly known as paperbarks, honey-myrtles or tea-trees (although the last name is also applied to species of ''Leptospermum''). They range in size f ...

stands. The river has a mean annual discharge of . The river was named in 1864 by the pastoralist

Francis Lascelles Jardine Francis Lascelles (Frank) Jardine (28 August 1841 – 19 March 1919) was a Scottish-Australian pioneer who was at the forefront of British colonisation and Aboriginal dispossession in the Cape York Peninsula and Torres Strait regions of Far N ...

after the explorer, doctor and politician Arthur Todd Holroyd. The

traditional owners Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have right ...

of the area are the Wik, Bakanh, Thaayorre and Kaanju peoples who inhabited the drainage basin for thousands of years. Kugu Muminh (also known as Kuku-Muminh. See also related Wik languages) is one of the traditional languages which includes the landscape within the local government boundaries of the

Cook Shire The Shire of Cook (The Shire) is a local government area in Far North Queensland, Australia. The Shire covers most of the eastern and central parts of Cape York Peninsula, the most northerly section of the Australian mainland. It covers an area ...

References

{{Rivers of Queensland Rivers of Far North Queensland Gulf of Carpentaria