The
Yarra River is a river in southern Victoria
(Australia); it is the river on which
the city of Melbourne was founded. The
river was called Birrarung by the Wurundjeri
people who occupied the Yarra valley prior
to European settlement. It was given the
name Yarra Yarra in 1835 by John Helder
Wedge of the Port Phillip Association,
in the mistaken belief that this was the
aborginal name for the river. Wedge wrote:
'On arriving in sight of the river, the
two natives who were with me pointed to
the river, and called out at it "Yarra",
"Yarra", which at the time I
imagined to be its name. But I afterwards
learnt that the words were what they used
to designate a waterfall, as they gave
the same designation to a small fall in
the Werribee River, as we crossed it on
our way back to Indented Head.'
The
Yarra's lower reaches travel through central
Melbourne. It is approximately 242 kilometres
in length, with a mean annual flow of
718,000 megalitres. It is the most westerly
snow fed river in Australia. The total
catchment area is approximately 4000 square
kilometres. Some of the Yarra's major
tributaries include the Maribyrnong River,
Plenty River, the Merri Creek, Darebin
Creek and the Moonee Ponds Creek. The
river's source is a series of swamps in
the upper reaches of the Yarra Ranges
National Park, directly to the east of
the Baw Baw plateau a thickly forested
subalpine park, which are entirely closed-off
to all except the employees of Melbourne
Water. The park features extensive stands
of mountain ash, a very tall eucalypt,
tree ferns, as well as patches of remnant
rainforest.
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