Keep-River-Nationalpark, View from Gurrandalng

The Keep 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 in the

Victoria Bonaparte The Victoria Bonaparte, an interim Australian bioregion, is located in the Northern Territory and Western Australia,

bioregion A bioregion is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a biogeographic realm, but larger than an ecoregion or an ecosystem, in the World Wide Fund for Nature classification scheme. There is also an attempt to use the ...

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 th ...

and 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 ...

in Australia.

Location and features

The river rises just south of the Newry Station homestead then flows in a northerly direction crossing the

Victoria Highway The Victoria Highway links the Great Northern Highway in Western Australia with the Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory. The highway is a part of the Perth - Darwin National Highway link. It is signed as National Highway 1, and is part ...

and then flowing through the

Keep River National Park Keep River National Park is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 418 km southwest of Darwin and 468 km west of Katherine. The nearest town is Kununurra in Western Australia. Environment The park has a number of striking sandstone ...

and veering westward across the border into

then veering east back into the

. It then continues north before discharging 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 ...

and 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 ...

. The river catchment occupies an area of and is wedged between the

Ord River The Ord River is a river in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The river's catchment covers . The lower Ord River and the conjunction with Cambridge Gulf create the most northern estuarine environment in Western Australia. The Ord ...

catchment to the west and the Victoria River catchment to the east. The river has a mean annual outflow of . Important wetlands are found in the lower reaches of the river, forming suitable habitat for waterfowl breeding colonies and roosting sites for migratory shorebirds. Large areas of rice-grass floodplain grasslands are also found along the river. 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 in near pristine condition. It occupies an area of of open water. It is tide dominated in nature with a tide dominated delta having multiple channels and is surrounded by an area of covered with

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...

Flora and fauna

Riparian A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the terrestrial biomes of the Earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks a ...

vegetation found along the margins in the river include '' Melaleuca'', ''

Barringtonia acutangula ''Barringtonia acutangula'' is a species of ''Barringtonia'' native to coastal wetlands in southern Asia and northern Australasia, from Afghanistan east to the Philippines, Queensland and the Northern Territory. Common names include freshwater m ...

'', ''

Nauclea orientalis ''Nauclea orientalis'' is a species of tree in the family Rubiaceae, native to Southeast Asia, New Guinea, and Australia. It has many common names, including bur tree, canary wood, Leichhardt pine and yellow cheesewood. It grows to a maximum of a ...

'', reeds and

taro Taro () (''Colocasia esculenta)'' is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in Afri ...

are common in the upper reaches. In pools along the river sponges such as Spongillidae can be found on rocks. Toward the national park area aquatic vegetation such as species of ''Nymphea'', '' Hydrilla verticillata'' and species of '' Chara'' become more frequent forming dense mats in some areas. Riparian vegetation includes ''Melaleuca'', ''Barringtonia acutangula'', ''Nauclea orientalis'', '' Lysiphyllum cunninghamii'' and ''

Pandanus spiralis ''Pandanus spiralis'' is native to northern Australia. It is commonly called common screwpine, iidool, pandanus palm, screw pine, screw palm or spring pandanus. It is neither a true palm, nor a pine. Distribution ''Pandanus spiralis'' occur ...

''. Marine fauna found along the river include fish including

freshwater sawfish The largetooth sawfish (''Pristis pristis'', syn. ''P. microdon'' and ''P. perotteti'') is a species of sawfish, family Pristidae. It is found worldwide in tropical and subtropical coastal regions, but also enters freshwater. It has declined dra ...

, dwarf wawfish, ox-eye herring,

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, ...

, short-tail thryssa, several species of catfish such as Arius and Anodontiglanis dahli, freshwater longtom, species of

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 ...

, hardeyheads, species of

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 ...

, species of

grunter Grunters or tigerperches are ray-finned fishes in the family Terapontidae (also spelled Teraponidae, Theraponidae or Therapontidae). This family is part of the superfamily Percoidea of the order Perciformes. Characteristics The Terapontidae i ...

, species of mullet, spotted

archerfish The archerfish (spinner fish or archer fish) form a monotypic family, Toxotidae, of fish known for their habit of preying on land-based insects and other small animals by shooting them down with water droplets from their specialized mouths. ...

, species of gudgeon, species of

goby Goby is a common name for many species of small to medium sized ray-finned fish, normally with large heads and tapered bodies, which are found in marine, brackish and freshwater environments. Traditionally most of the species called gobies have b ...

and baramundi. In February 2022, the Northern Territory Land Corporation released 67,500 hectares for a planned conversion of the landscape towards the cultivation of rice, cotton and various fruits like mangoes and bananas. The effects of this major project on the natural ecology and Aboriginal

sacred sites Sacred space, sacred ground, sacred place, sacred temple, holy ground, or holy place refers to a location which is deemed to be sacred or hallowed. The sacredness of a natural feature may accrue through tradition or be granted through a bless ...

are not yet known.

History

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 Kadjerong and Duulngari peoples to the northern end and the Miriwoong people to the south. The origin of the name is not known but it is thought to have been named for Henry Francis Keep who was a store keeper in Wyndham. The first written record of the name was in the diary of explorer and pastoralist,

Michael Durack Michael Patrick Durack, (22 July 1865 – 3 September 1950) was a pastoralist and Western Australian pioneer, known as "M.P." or to the family as "Miguel". He was the son of Patrick Durack and Mary Costello, both Irish-Australians. Life and c ...

, who wrote about a "trip to Keep River" in 1894.

References

{{Authority control Rivers of the Northern Territory

Location and features

Flora and fauna

History

See also

References