Fitzroy River (Queensland)
The Fitzroy River lies in Queensland, Australia. Its catchment covers an area of 142,665 square kilometres, making it the largest river catchment flowing to the eastern coast of Australia. The river is formed by the joining of the Mackenzie and Dawson rivers at Duaringa. The catchment stretches from the Carnarvon Ranges in the west to the rivermouth in Keppel Bay, near Rockhampton. It is bounded to the north by the Burdekin River catchment area and to the south by the Burnett River catchment area.
The Fitzroy was named by Charles and William Archer on 4 May 1853 in honour of Sir Charles FitzRoy, Governor of the Colony of New South Wales, as Queensland did not become a separate colony until 1859.
Read more about Fitzroy River (Queensland): Settlement, Wildlife, 2010–2011 Queensland Floods, Tributaries
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)