The Murray River is a river in

Far North Queensland Far North Queensland (FNQ) is the northernmost part of the Australian state of Queensland. Its largest city is Cairns and it is dominated geographically by Cape York Peninsula, which stretches north to the Torres Strait, and west to the Gulf C ...

. It extends for a length of and drops in height from its source in the mountains of

Girringun National Park Girringun National Park is a national park in Queensland, Australia, approximately southwest of Ingham, north of Townsville and northwest of Brisbane. The park is one of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area series of national parks, and is ...

to its mouth on the Queensland coast. It is named after John Murray, who was an officer in the paramilitary

Native Police Australian native police units, consisting of Aboriginal troopers under the command (usually) of at least one white officer, existed in various forms in all Australian mainland colonies during the nineteenth and, in some cases, into the twentie ...

force. British colonists initially named it the Macalister River in 1865, but its appellation was later changed to the Murray River. The

Murray Falls The Murray Falls, a cascade waterfall on the Murray River, is located in the UNESCO World Heritagelisted Wet Tropics in Murray Upper, Cassowary Coast Region in the Far North region of Queensland, Australia. Location and features The Murray F ...

is a popular tourist destination in the upper reaches of the river. The first British surveyors in the area found that the central parts of the river were surrounded by open grassed plains instead of the thick

tropical rainforest Tropical rainforests are rainforests that occur in areas of tropical rainforest climate in which there is no dry season – all months have an average precipitation of at least 60 mm – and may also be referred to as ''lowland equatori ...

which was typical of the lowlands in the region. This facilitated the relatively straightforward cultivation of

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

crops in the area, the rich soil being available without having to clear any forest. These plains, which were called the Murray or Bellenden Plains, became the first area of

in which

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...

was introduced and grown as a

cash crop A cash crop or profit crop is an Agriculture, agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm. The term is used to differentiate marketed crops from staple crop (or "subsistence crop") ...

. In 1866, capitalist agriculturalist

John Ewen Davidson John Ewen Davidson (2 March 1841 in London – 2 September 1923 in Oxford) was a colonist sugar planter, slave owner, murderer, and miller in Queensland. Life and career John Ewen Davidson was born as the son of a Scottish merchant. He was e ...

was the first colonist to plant sugar on these plains located around the Murray River.

References

{{reflist Rivers of Queensland