The Diamantina River is a remarkable and remote waterway stretching approximately 900 kilometres through the heart of Central West Queensland and into the far north of South Australia. Rising from the Swords Range west of Winton at an elevation of around 313 metres, the river flows southward through some of Australia's most iconic outback landscape — the Channel Country — before crossing the South Australian border and ultimately contributing to the Warburton River and the vast Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre basin, the lowest natural point on the continent at just 20 metres elevation. Named by explorer William Landsborough in 1866 in honour of Lady Diamantina Bowen, wife of Queensland's first Governor, the river drains a catchment of approximately 157,000 square kilometres. Unlike many rivers, the Diamantina does not follow a single well-defined main channel but instead spreads across a series of wide, relatively shallow channels — a characteristic of the Channel Country that makes it both fascinating and unpredictable for those venturing into this remote region.