Great Darling Anabranch

The Great Darling Anabranch, also known as the Darling Anabranch, is a unique and beautiful river system located in the lower Murray-Darling basin of New South Wales, Australia.

It is an anabranch, which means it is an ancestral path of the Darling River, and it flows approximately 460 to 488 kilometers (286 to 303 miles) from its offtake on the Darling River south of Menindee, southward to the Murray River, west of Wentworth.

The Darling Anabranch is a naturally ephemeral system, which means that it is a system of watercourses with no defined channel that only flow during certain periods. The system contains approximately twenty ephemeral deflation basin lakes, called the Anabranch Lakes, which are associated with the Darling Anabranch. Several of these lakes are over 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres) in size. The Anabranch Lakes and associated marginal vegetation are listed in the Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia and collectively cover an area of 269,000 hectares (660,000 acres).

The Darling Anabranch also holds significant cultural and historical value. It contains archaeological cultural material and evidence of Aboriginal occupation. Additionally, a series of 17 weir pools were built along the river in the 1960s to manage it as a permanent water supply for stock and domestic water use for adjacent landholders. In 2007, a pipeline was constructed along the length of the Darling Anabranch to supply water to adjacent land