The Mitchell River is a river located in Far North Queensland, Australia. The river rises on the Atherton Tableland about northwest of Cairns and flows about northwest across Cape York Peninsula from Mareeba to the Gulf of Carpentaria. The river's watershed covers an area of . The Mitchell River has the state's largest discharge, at annually, but is intermittent and may be dry for part of the year. Lake Mitchell is the main water storage facility on the river. It was named by Ludwig Leichhardt on the 16 June 1845 after Sir Thomas Mitchell while he was on his overland expedition from Moreton Bay to Port Essington. It may have been previously named the Vereenighde River in 1623 by a Dutch merchant and navigator, Jan Carstensz. Biophysical aspects The Mitchell River and its tributaries have for a long time carved their way westwards through the rugged, weathered highlands of the Great Dividing Range, carrying away sediments to be deposited in the broad floodplains and wetlands of the Gulf Savannah country. The rivers' waters 'pulse' annually with monsoonal rains, seasonally collecting water from across the local tropical rainforests in the highlands to the east; the wet sclerophyll forests in the central uplands; a variety of woodlands plus savannah in the western plains; annually flooding with freshwater, the tidal plains, wetlands, estuaries, and mangroves of the lower Mitchell and coastal plains. From source to mouth, the Mitchell River is joined by 34 tributaries including the McLeod River, Hodgkinson River, St George River, Dry River, Little Mitchell River, Walsh River, Lynd River, Palmer River and Alice River. Protected areas within the Mitchell River catchment include the Hann Tableland, Mitchell-Alice Rivers, Chillagoe-Mungana Caves, part of Bulleringa to the south, and most of the Forty Mile Scrub national parks. Fauna and Flora Being a large river system, the Mitchell River may contain within its catchment one of Australia's most ecologically diverse aquatic systems consisting of a rich variety of both wet and dry tropical monsoonal habitats. The catchment ecology as a whole has been generally described as follows: The vegetation in the Mitchell River Catchment area ranges from the World Heritage Wet Tropic rainforest on the eastern highlands to the open savannah on the western and lower Mitchell plains. The extensive mangroves and lagoon systems at the delta of the Mitchell River are recognised worldwide. The permanent waters in the upper catchment are associated with