Patawalonga River

The Patawalonga River, also known as Patawalonga Creek or "the Pat" by locals, is a short river located in the western suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia.

Its name comes from the Indigenous Kaurna people's language, meaning "the place of the swamp gum." The river's catchment area is in the western Adelaide Hills, and it drains into Gulf St Vincent south of Glenelg.

Before European settlers arrived, the Patawalonga River was a tidal estuary. It is now a primary outlet for Keswick and Brownhill Creeks and the Sturt River. The construction of the Cowandilla-Mile End drainage network enabled the establishment of Adelaide Airport and residential housing. The river's flow is regulated by barrages at Glenelg North, and it continues to flow past the Holdfast Shores marina development. It is also connected to the Warriparinga Wetlands, an artificial wetland designed to filter stormwater before it flows through the Sturt River to the Patawalonga River.

The Indigenous Kaurna people named the river Patawalonga, which means a swamp gum tree with branches. There are different interpretations of the name's meaning, including "swamp of snakes" and "boggy and bushy stretch, with fish." The name was first recorded in 1839 and has remained in common usage, despite the river originally being officially known as the "River Thames" and locally as the "Glenelg Creek."

Colonel Light discovered the Patawalonga River while surveying the site for the city of Adelaide. The river mouth became the first significant river port for the colony of South Australia, as the Port River at Port Adelaide