Lachlan

Course

The river rises on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range in the Southern Tablelands district of New South Wales, formed by the confluence of Hannans Creek and Mutmutbilly Creek, 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) east of Gunning, and 26 kilometres (16 mi) west of Goulburn. The river flows generally north-west, north, west and south-west, joined by thirty-seven tributaries including the Crookwell, Abercrombie, Boorowa, and Belubula rivers before terminating near Oxley in the 500-square-kilometre (190 sq mi) Great Cumbung swamp that joins the Murrumbidgee River to the south and becomes part of the Lowbidgee Floodplain. The river descends 632 metres (2,073 ft) over its 1,440-kilometre (890 mi) course.

History

The Lachlan River is located in the traditional homelands of the Wiradjuri Aboriginal people. The Wiradjuri lived along the Macquarie, Lachlan and Murrumbidgee Rivers, in the area known as "the land of the three rivers".

Acting-Surveyor George William Evans visited the river in 1815, naming it the Lachlan River after Lachlan Macquarie, the governor of the colony of New South Wales. The Lachlan River was substantially explored by John Oxley in 1817. In the early days of colonial New South Wales, the southern part of the Lachlan was known as Fish River. It was only after further exploration that it was realised that these two rivers were the same river and the name Fish River was dropped.