Jardine River
The headwaters of the Jardine River, formerly Deception River, rise in the Great Dividing Range southwest of Helby Hill and flow northwesterly across the northern Cape York Peninsula through Anggamudi country. The McHenry River, along with six other tributaries, discharges into the Jardine as it flows towards the Jardine Swamps and, eventually, into Endeavour Strait near Van Spoult Head. Unlike many other northern rivers, the Jardine's 3262-square-kilometre catchment is extensive enough and gathers enough rainfall to allow the river to flow year-round.
The river's name comes from Frank and Alexander Jardine, whose 1864 expedition left Rockhampton to drive a herd of 250 cattle to the newly-established settlement at Somerset, where their father was the Queensland Government Resident and Police Magistrate. After crossing the Batavia River and surviving a pitched battle with the local Indigenous people, the Jardines came across a river they believed was Edmund Kennedy's Escape River and would take them to Somerset. When it didn't, they named the stream the Deception. Queensland Governor Sir George Bowen subsequently renamed it after the Jardines. Earlier, the Jardine/Deception was probably the stream Jan Carstensz named after Herman Van Speult, the Dutch Governor of Ambon in 1623.
The almost unpopulated coastal locality of Jardine River, with a footprint in both the Cook Shire and Torres Shire, takes its name from the eponymous watercourse.
Links to add:
Deception River
Helby Hill
McHenry River
Jardine Swamps
Van Spoult Head.
Frank and Alexander Jardine
Rockhampton
Somerset
Batavia River
Edmund Kennedy
Escape River
Sir George Bowen
Jan Carstensz
Herman Van Speult
Ambon
Cook Shire
Torres Shire
