Photographs of the Murray River

Images of Australian Waterways

The Murray River, one of our most iconic rivers, at 2,508 km is Australia's longest river and along with the Darling River, are town major waterways that form the backbone of the expansive Murray-Darling Basin (along with their respective tributaries).

The First Nations people know the waterway as Millewa (Ngarrindjeri) and Tongala (Yorta Yorta) Rising in the Australian Alps as a spring near a point known as The Pilot in the Pilot Wilderness area around Mt Kosciuszko National Park.

The vast amount of its flow comes from the spring snowmelt from the western side of the Alpine mountains which includes Australia’s highest mountain Mount Kosciuszko (2,228 m). From the Alpine region, the Murray river meanders its way west down through the Upper Murray region to Lake Hume near Albury, across the Riverina to Lake Mulwala (Yarrawonga), and onto Echuca which is the closest point the river gets to Melbourne and the reason Echuca became an important riverboat town. From Echuca, the Murray River heads northwest through the Barmah forest, through which it ephemerally spreads, before heading to Mildura via Swan Hill. About 20 km downstream from Mildura, it is joined by the Darling River at Wentworth, and as one they flow west across the border into South Australia and onto Morgan via Renmark and Loxton. From Morgan, the Murray river heads south via Blanchetown, Mannum, Murray Bridge, and Tailem Bend before reaching its final destination of Lake Alexandrina, and out to the Great Australian Bight via the Coorong.