Yarra

Yarra

It was John Wedge, Batman's private surveyor, who named the Yarra Yarra. In September 1835 he was at the Turning Basin with some Kulin and heard them identify the river as it came over the Falls as, he wrote, 'Yarrow Yarrow'. It was only some months later that Wedge discovered they had been referring to the pattern and movement of water over the Falls, not the river itself. And ever since, it has been the Yarra's fate to be misunderstood- maligned for its muddiness, ill-used as sewer and tip; scooped, sculpted, straightened and stressed, 'cleaned up' to the detriment of its natural inhabitants; built-over, under and beside; worked mercilessly and then bridged almost to maritime extinction. In Kristin Otto's superbly entertaining new history, the whole sorry tale is laid bare. From the creation stories of Kulin owners and geologist blow-ins (and Robert Hoddle's bad-tempered expedition to the headwaters) to the twenty-first-century waterside building boom, Otto traces the course of Melbourne's murky river.

A Bend in the Yarra

The Yarra Bend Park marks one of the most important post-contact places in the Melbourne metropolitan area, and is of great significance to Victorian Aboriginal people. At this site was located the Merri Creek Aboriginal School, the Merri Creek Protectorate Station, The Native Police Corps Headquarters and associated Aboriginal burials.

Melbourne on the Yarra