Fitzroy River (King Sound)

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Fitzroy River
View of the river from the bridge at Fitzroy Crossing

View of the river from the bridge at Fitzroy Crossing

Data
location Western Australia , Australia
River system Fitzroy River
Drain over Fitzroy River → Indian Ocean
source Mount Wells (King Leopold Ranges)
17 ° 24 ′ 32 ″  S , 127 ° 11 ′ 6 ″  E
Source height 486  m
muzzle King Sound ( Indian Ocean ) at Derby Coordinates: 17 ° 25 ′ 39 ″  S , 123 ° 33 ′ 52 ″  E 17 ° 25 ′ 39 ″  S , 123 ° 33 ′ 52 ″  E
Mouth height 0  m
Height difference 486 m
Bottom slope 0.74 ‰
length 656 km
Catchment area 93,829 km²
Drain at the gauge at Dimond Gorge station MQ
 84.78dep1
Left tributaries Collis Creek, Spider Creek, Cowendyne Creek, Stony Creek, Margaret River , Blariyaning Creek, Christmas Creek, Nerrima Creek, Geegully Creek, Mudjalla Creek, Minnie River
Right tributaries Little Fitzroy River , Hann River , Roy Creek, Adcock River , Sandy Creek, Pigeon Creek, Station Creek, Cunninghame River , Yeeda River
Flowing lakes Alligator Pool , Broken Wagon Pool , Chestnut Pool , Tumblegoodine Pool , Jarrananga Pool , Snag Pool
Medium-sized cities Fitzroy Crossing
Small towns Junjuwa, Ngurtuwarta, Yungngora, New Looma, Jarimadangah, Pandanus Park, William Bridge Roadhouse
Communities Jubilee Downs, Quanbun, Noonkanbah, Myroodah, Mt. Anderson, Udialla,
Alexander Island in the Fitzroy River

Alexander Island in the Fitzroy River

A channel of the Fitzroy River in the 2006 dry season. Looking north from Willare Bridge.

A channel of the Fitzroy River in the 2006 dry season. Looking north from Willare Bridge .

The Fitzroy River is a river in the Kimberley region in the north of the Australian state of Western Australia .

geography

The river has its source on the western slopes of Mount Wells in the eastern part of the King Leopold Ranges and flows from there west to the end of the Narrie Range . There it turns its course to the southwest and crosses the town of Fitzroy Crossing on the Great Northern Highway . Further south, at the St. Georges Range , it turns west again and continues its course on the northern edge of the Great Sand Desert in a westerly and northwestern direction. At Yeeda , around 40 kilometers south of Derby , it flows into King Sound , a bay in the Indian Ocean .

The length of the river is 656 km. The catchment area of the river covers 93,829 km².

Tributaries with mouth heights

Flowing lakes

In its lower reaches the Fitzroy River flows through several pools that are permanently filled with water:

geology

The Fitzroy Valley is a separate physiographic division of the Canning Basin , which in turn is part of the larger Australian shield.

history

The river was discovered in 1837 by George Gray on a trip on the HMS Beagle . On February 26, 1838, the river was named by Lieutenant JL Stokes after Captain Robert FitzRoy of the Royal Navy. The upper river regions were not explored until the end of the 19th century , for example by Alexander Forrest, who in 1879 traveled to the area where the Margaret River flows into the Fitzroy River (about ten kilometers south of the Geikie Gorge, discovered four years later ). The town of Fitzroy Crossing, which initially consisted of only two farms and a hostel, was built around the turn of the century.

It is worth mentioning the cartographic life work of Guillaume Le Testu from 1555, which shows the exact course of the coast of Western Australia - 43 years before the then hypothetical southern continent Terra Australis incognita was officially associated with the fifth continent in a book printed at the University of Leuven . At the mouth of the Fitzroy River, he put the name "Terra Australis" and was thus half a century ahead of the knowledge of the leading navigators and cartographers in the Netherlands at the time .

Where he got his precise knowledge from - or whether it came partly from his imagination - cannot be fully clarified. The Iles des Crifors in front of today's Joseph Bonaparte Gulf cannot be found, but the realistically mapped Fitzroy Delta and the indentations of the rivers and Cape Londonderry speak for solid sources or perhaps their own inspection. Because how else would you have known about armadillos on the French Channel coast in 1555 , which occur exclusively in South, Central and South America, and dingoes that, according to official reports, were only discovered around 1660, but with which the map is adorned.

Dams on the Fitzroy River

In the 1950s, as part of the failed Camballin Irrigation Scheme , the Fitzroy River was diverted to impound water for irrigation of cotton , sorghum, and other forage fields. A twelve- hectare reservoir was created there.

There have also been proposals in the past to damm the river in Dimond Gorge .

In April 2007, the opposition leader in the Parliament of Western Australia, Colin Barnett , presented his plans to dam the river, which he would implement in the event of his election. His model was the irrigation systems in the Murray Darling Basin , which often had to contend with water scarcity due to the drought. His 20-year plan also provided for pipeline feed into Perth's water supply .

See also

literature

History of the flooding of the Fitzroy River . Boab Babbler (March 12, 1993). P. 25

Web links

Commons : Fitzroy River (King Sound)  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Map of Fitzroy River, WA . Bonzle.com
  2. ^ Australian Natural Resources Atlas - Landscape - carbon, nutrients, water and productivity - Fitzroy River (WA) . 2008. Archived from the original on August 4, 2008. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 26, 2008. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.anra.gov.au
  3. ^ Steve Parish: Australian Touring Atlas . Steve Parish Publishing Pty. Ltd. Archerfield QLD (2007). ISBN 978174193232-4 . Pp. 88 + 89