Drysdale 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 Kimberley region of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to t ...

. The river rises in the Caroline Ranges, flows in a northerly direction and discharges into Napier Broome Bay near Kalumburu. The river contains several permanent pools, some of which have several examples of

Indigenous Australian 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 ...

art known as Bradshaw paintings that can be found along the cliff faces. Notable waterfalls on the river are the Eagle Falls, which are regularly visited by Kimberley coastal cruise ships, Solea Falls north of the Johnston Creek fork, and Bango Falls on the tributary Bango Creek. There are 19

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 ...

of the Drysdale, including

Gibb River The Gibb River is a river in the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia. The headwaters of the river rise between the Caroline and Gibb Ranges. The river flows in a northerly direction until merging with the Drysdale River, of which ...

, Woodhouse River,

Barton River The Barton River is a tributary of Lake Memphremagog, over long, in northern Vermont in the United States. It runs north from Glover through Barton, Brownington, Coventry and drains through Newport into Lake Memphremagog's South Bay. Cou ...

, Tadarida Creek, Wax Creek, Curlew Creek, King David Creek, Ubach Creek and Damper Creek. 15% of the river's catchment area lies within Drysdale River National Park. The river was named after a director of the Victorian Squatting Company, Thomas Andrew Drysdale, by the company's surveyor Charles Burrowes, in 1886. 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 that the river flows through are the

Ngarinjin The Ngarinyin or Ngarinjin are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Their language, Ngarinyin, is also known as Ungarinyin. When referring to their traditional lands, they refer to themselves as Wilinggi ...

, Miwa and Wilawila peoples.

References

Rivers of the Kimberley region of Western Australia {{WesternAustralia-river-stub