8. With a name similar to a man who jumped out of a plane, which famous Australian river is referred to as a creek?
From Quiz Rivers of Australian Life
Answer:
Cooper Creek
At some 1,300 kilometres long, Cooper Creek is also frequently referred to as the Barcoo River, but that's actually the name of one of the misnamed Cooper Creek's tributaries. Both are part of three major drainage systems that flow way down south into the Lake Eyre basin. All that however depends on whether we get rain in this part of the world or not. Cooper Creek, once known as Cooper's Creek, but referred to as a river in its early days (Oh this is so confusing) rises is the far north east of Queensland, west of the Great Dividing Range, crosses down into South Australia, and then makes its weary way into Lake Eyre, a lake that is sometimes full and teeming with fish and beautiful birds, but sometimes as dry as a bone.
Because of the instability of the weather, Cooper Whatever is often absorbed into the ground of the several deserts through which it passes, leaving just a few waterholes to show where it has passed. Australia can break your heart if you let it. This water system is famous for one other tragedy. It is where, in 1860-61, two of our early explorers, Burke and Wills, died of hunger and thirst on their attempt to cross this unforgiving continent from south to north, a distance of some 3,250 kilometres.
(D.B. Cooper was a man who hijacked an American Boeing 727 in November, 1971 - parachuted out of the plane in the middle of nowhere, and was never seen again)