The is situated in
Southeast Queensland ,
Australia , and flows through the city of
Brisbane , before emptying into
Moreton Bay . The river is dammed by the
Wivenhoe Dam , forming Lake Wivenhoe, the main water supply for Brisbane. The river was named after the
Governor Of New South Wales Thomas Brisbane by the explorer
John Oxley in
1823 .
The
CityCat ferry service collects and delivers passengers along the inner-city reaches of the river. The
Port Of Brisbane manages the movement of larger vessels into the river from the bay.
Four European
Navigators , namely
Captain Cook ,
Matthew Flinders ,
John Bingle and
William Edwardson , all visited Moreton Bay but they failed to discover the river. Three castaways who were caught in a gale and blown off course all the way from
Sydney to
Moreton Island were found by Oxley while he was surveying the east coast for a new penal settlement. They had previously wandered the area, walking along the river up to
Oxley Creek .
On the
2 December 1823, Oxley and his crew, including two of the castaways, Pamphlett and Finnegan, entered the river and sailed upstream as far as present-day
Goodna . Oxley noted the abundant
Fish and tall
Pine Tree s. Early European explorers marvelled at the sheer natural beauty they witnessed while travelling up the lower reaches. Also during 1823, the river was named after
Sir Thomas Brisbane , the then
Governor Of New South Wales .
Upon the establishment of a local settlement in 1824, other explorers such as
Allan Cunningham ,
Patrick Logan and
Major Edmund Lockyer made expeditions and surveys further upstream, and, in 1825, the Moreton Bay penal colony at
Redcliffe relocated to
North Quay .
From
1862 the Brisbane River has been dredged for navigation purposes. Throughout much of the 20th century large quantities of
Sand and
Gravel were extracted from the estuary of the river. Since the rate of materials being deposited is not as high as that which was removed, the river has acted as a subaqueous
Mine .
There was also much dredging and widening work done over the years to allow ships to transport
Cargo to and from Brisbane. The river has served as an important carriageway between Brisbane and Ipswich before a
Railway linking the towns was built in
1875 . By early
1825 Buoy s were being laid along the South Passage and shortly after that the first pilots were commissioned to guide ships entering from Moreton Bay and another service for those travelling upstream.
and
CityCat from
Victoria Bridge .]]
The first small private wharves were built on the river in about
1848 . In 1866 there was a
Breakwater built at the junction of the Bremer and Brisbane rivers that was designed to stop shingle from blocking the access to the Bremer's boat channel. The first
Pile Light using
Kerosene was built in
1882 . The
Steel framed light also served as an early port
Signal Station .
The river depth was progressively increased and narrow points widened to allow larger vessels into the river and further upstream. For navigation and safety reasons the Seventeen Mile Rocks were completely removed in
1965 . The northern river bank at the mouth of the river has undergone reclamation projects over the years, especially in the suburbs of
Hamilton and
Pinkenba . More recently, extensive port facilities have been constructed on Fisherman's Island which has also seen significant land reclamation into the bay.
Early rivers crossings were made by rowing
Ferries followed by steam ferries. In
1865 the first
Victoria Bridge , later destroyed in a flood, was built across the river. Professor
Hawken of the
University Of Queensland undertook a study in 1914 to identify the future crossing points for the river.
