Margaret River is a river in southwest Western Australia. Although small and unremarkable, it is the eponym of the iconic town and tourist region of Margaret River, famous for its surfing, caves and wine.
The river arises from a catchment of just 40 square kilometres in the Whicher Ranges. For much of its middle reaches it passes through land cleared for agriculture, especially viticulture. There is a weir across the river just above the town. The mouth of the river is a small estuary, closed to the ocean by a sandbar that opens only seasonally.
Margaret River is presumed to be named after Margaret Wyche, cousin of John Garrett Bussell (founder of Busselton) in 1831.
Famous quotes containing the word river:
“Every incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers and ponds and the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us who live in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they who dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to end, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes out of the mud with quakings of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)