wc_beginnings_yarra

The Beginnings of the Yarra | Home | The beginnings of the Yarra | Building bridges | Buildings around the Yarra | Shipping cargo into Melbourne via the Yarra | Flooding on the Yarra | Changing the course of the Yarra | Mind Map | Bibliography | The Yarra River runs through a number of the most popular tourist attractions in Melbourne City. There is Southgate, Southbank and The Botanic Gardens, which have made the Yarra more attractive and more versatile. It is also appealing not only to tourists but for people who work in the city.For more information click on these links. | Southgate | Southbank |
 * Tayler's reflection | Alice's reflection |

 Before any settlers came to Melbourne the owners of the land, aboriginies, called the Yarra River Birrarung which means 'river of mists and shadows'.

The Yarra runs for 242km and covers an area of 4062 metres squared. That is around half the metropoliton area of melbourne. If flows to 9 dams that catch water to supply to 2.6 million houses.

Melbourne was founded on the 30th of August 1835. It was founded by a group of men who sailed from Tasmania looking for land. They wanted this land to put sheep on. The ship they travelled on was called the Enterprize. On board the ship was John Pascoe Fawkner, John Batman, John Lancy and George Evans. They originally landed where the Customs house is today. When they arrived John Batman made a deal with the traditional owners of the land. They were the aboriginals. His deal was, in exchange for blankets, knives, scissors, and hankercheifs he bought 500, 000 acres of land including the river. The problem with this was because neither of them could communicate the aboriginals thought that they had only given temporary rights to use their land.

The first settlement was chosen because there was a small waterfall near the river which contained fresh water. The first name suggested for this new settlement was Batmania. In 1837 it was officially called Melbourne. It was named after the Prime Minister of England. Queen Victoria was on the throne at the time. Every year to mark the day that Melbourne was founded, the Melbourne Day Committee hosts events to celebrate.

On Queens Warf there is a plaque that explains the founding of Melbourne this is what is says : "The Enterprize landing memorial In memory of those who landed here in August 1835 to begin the first settlement of europeans, of the site that would become the city of Melbourne.

The schooner Enterprize (captain Peter Hunter) from Launceston, Tasmania, reached this stretch of the Yarra River on the 29th of August. On the following day Sunday 30th of August, the horses and deck cargo were unloaded.

When the Enterprize returned to Launceston, the seven who remained were: John Lancy, master mariner ; George Evans, settler; Evan Evans, his servant; James Gilbert, Thomas Morgan, and Charles Wise, servants of J.P Fawkner, the owner of the schooner; and Mary Gilbert. Mary, the only women in the party, was James Gilbert's wife. She gave birth, on 29th December, 1835 to a son, James, the first European child to be born in Melbourne."

The water on the Yarra today looks brown and very unclean. In the 1800s it was normal for people to drink, bath and fish for food from the Yarra River. Now, after many changes and developments, the appearance does not mean that the Yarra is unclean. The appearance does not mean that the Yarra is unclean at all. The river is actually brown because the fresh water from the mountain is mixing with sea water and lifting sediment from the bottom. As the buildings and the city began to develop around the river it caused problems with its sewage. It was then said to be undrinkable after just 20 years of settlement.
 * The Water on the Yarra**