Burdekin River
From headwaters on the western slopes of the Seaview Range, west of Ingham, the Burdekin River flows through Gugu Badhun country into the Coral Sea at Upstart Bay over 200 kilometres southeast of the source, draining a catchment area of approximately 130,000 square kilometres (50,000 sq mi). After it passes through the Leichhardt Range, the river's lower reaches are the boundary between Bindal country to the north and Yuru country on the southern bank.
The river's numerous tributaries include the Running River, Star River and Keelbottom Creek (flowing in from the east above Charters Towers), the Clarke, Basalt, Dry, and Fanning Rivers from the west, above Lake Dalrymple and the Burdekin Falls Dam, where the Cape, Suttor and Belyando Rivers flow into Lake Dalrymple. The Bowen and Bogie Rivers join the Burdekin on the seaward side of the dam wall. With the continent's fourth-largest watershed, it is Australia's largest river by (peak) discharge volume, though the erratic nature of rainfall in the catchment means the outflow into the Coral Sea is highly variable.
Still, while the supply of surface water is variable, the Burdekin delta developed into one of Austraklia's most significant sugar-growing regions thanks to the extensive aquifers that lie just below the surface. Weirs at the Leichhardt Gorge and Dalbeg allowed the area under irrigation to expand, additional groundwater supplies via the Burdekin Haughton Water Supply Scheme (BHWSS) and the Burdekin Falls Dam has seen the area under irrigation expand to approximately 80,000 hectares.
John Clements Wickham located the river's mouth on HMS Beagle's northern voyage in 1839 and named it the Wickham River. Ten years later, Ludwig Leichhardt travelled along its upper reaches, which he named after Thomas Burdekin, one of the expedition's sponsors of Leichhardt's expedition.
