The Fitzmaurice River is a river in Australia's

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 ...

Course

The river drains into the

Joseph Bonaparte Gulf Joseph Bonaparte Gulf is a large body of water off the coast of the Northern Territory and Western Australia and part of the Timor Sea. It was named after Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon and King of Naples (1806-1808) and then Spain (1808 ...

in the

Timor Sea The Timor Sea ( id, Laut Timor, pt, Mar de Timor, tet, Tasi Mane or ) is a relatively shallow sea bounded to the north by the island of Timor, to the east by the Arafura Sea, and to the south by Australia. The sea contains a number of reefs ...

from a source just north of the Wombungi

homestead Homestead may refer to: *Homestead (buildings), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses * Homestead (unit), a unit of measurement equal to 160 acres *Homestead principle, a legal concept t ...

. The river flows in a westerly direction between the Wingate mountains to the north and the Yamberra Mountains to the south. The area is quite remote and largely unsettled, and the river itself forms the southern boundary of the township of

Wadeye Wadeye ( ) is a town in Australia's Northern Territory. It was formerly known (and is still often referred to) as Port Keats. At the , Wadeye had a population of 2,280. Wadeye is the 6th most populous town, and the largest Indigenous community ...

. The

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

formed at the river mouth is tidal in nature and in near pristine condition.

Catchment

The drainage basin occupies an area of and is wedged between the catchment areas for Victoria River to the south and

Moyle River The Moyle River is a river in the Northern Territory, Australia. Course The river rises on a plateau area near the Wingate Mountains and flows in a north westerly direction through mostly uninhabited country through a narrow valley then across ...

to the north. The river has a mean annual outflow of ,

Fauna

A total of 16 species of fish are found in the river including; the

glassfish GlassFish is an open-source Jakarta EE platform application server project started by Sun Microsystems, then sponsored by Oracle Corporation, and now living at the Eclipse Foundation and supported by Payara, Oracle and Red Hat. The supported v ...

, Macleay's glassfish, fork-talked catfish, fly-specked hardyhead, mouth almighty,

spangled perch ''Leiopotherapon unicolor'', the spangled grunter or spangled perch is a species of ray-finned fish, a grunter from the family Terapontidae. It is endemic to Australia. Description ''Leiopotherapon unicolor'' has a slender, oval shaped body whi ...

barramundi The barramundi (''Lates calcarifer'') or Asian sea bass, is a species of catadromous fish in the family Latidae of the order Perciformes. The species is widely distributed in the Indo-West Pacific, spanning the waters of the Middle East, Sout ...

, oxeye herring,

rainbowfish The rainbowfish or Melanotaeniidae is a family of small, colourful freshwater fish found in northern and eastern Australia, New Guinea (including islands in Cenderawasih Bay and Raja Ampat Islands in Indonesia), Sulawesi and Madagascar. The ...

, exquisite rainbowfish, Northern trout gudgeon,

bony bream Bony bream ''Nematalosa erebi'' are a widespread and common, small to medium-sized Australian freshwater fish often found in large shoals throughout much of northern and central Australia, and the Murray-Darling basin. Description A deep bodied, ...

, catfish, and the seven-spot archerfish. A large number of crocodiles—both saltwater and fresh—inhabit the river. Wild cattle and bush pigs can be found in the surrounding countryside.

History

It was first charted in 1839 by European explorers aboard under the command of

John Lort Stokes Admiral John Lort Stokes, RN (1 August 1811 – 11 June 1885)Although 1812 is frequently given as Stokes's year of birth, it has been argued by author Marsden Hordern that Stokes was born in 1811, citing a letter by fellow naval officer Crawford ...

. It was named after Lewis Roper Fitzmaurice, a mate and assistant surveyor on the ''Beagle''. In 1977, Australian bushman Rodney Ansell was stuck for months on the river, after his boat capsized in the estuary and he ventured upstream for a source of fresh water.

References

External links