The Ducie River is a river of the Cape York Peninsula

Cape York Peninsula

Cape York Peninsula is a large remote peninsula located in Far North Queensland at the tip of the state of Queensland, Australia, the largest unspoilt wilderness in northern Australia and one of the last remaining wilderness areas on Earth...

 in Far North Queensland

Far North Queensland

Far North Queensland, or FNQ, is the northernmost part of the Australian state of Queensland. The region, which contains a large section of the Tropical North Queensland area, stretches from the city of Cairns north to the Torres Strait...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It rises in the Great Dividing Range

Great Dividing Range

The Great Dividing Range, or the Eastern Highlands, is Australia's most substantial mountain range and the third longest in the world. The range stretches more than 3,500 km from Dauan Island off the northeastern tip of Queensland, running the entire length of the eastern coastline through...

, flows through stringybark

Stringybark

A stringybark can be any of the many Eucalyptus species which have thick, fibrous bark. Like all eucalypts, stringybarks belong to the Myrtaceae family. In exceptionally fertile locations some stringybark species A stringybark can be any of the many Eucalyptus species which have thick, fibrous...

 woodland

Woodland

Ecologically, a woodland is a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade. Woodlands may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of...

s, tropical savanna plains and wetland

Wetland

A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....

s, and enters the Gulf of Carpentaria

Gulf of Carpentaria

The Gulf of Carpentaria is a large, shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the Arafura Sea...

 on the western side of the peninsula at Port Musgrave

Port Musgrave

Port Musgrave is a shallow, almost enclosed, estuary, forming a bay on the western coast of the Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland, Australia. Two major rivers, the Wenlock and the Ducie discharge into it. The surrounding area is rich in freshwater swamps, while the estuary itself has...

 just north of Mapoon

Mapoon Aboriginal Mission Queensland

Mapoon Aboriginal Community is located at Port Musgrave, western Cape York in Queensland. A Presbyterian mission was established at Mapoon in 1891 with the aim of providing education and health services to the Aboriginal people. By 1907, under the Reformatories Act, it was operating as community...

.

The catchment covers 6,746 km². There are no major towns or water storage facilities in the watershed.

Much of the river is bordered by gallery

Gallery forest

Gallery forests are evergreen forests that form as corridors along rivers or wetlands and project into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands or deserts....

 rainforest

Rainforest

Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...

. In its lower reaches it supports extensive tidal mangrove

Mangrove

Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...

 forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

 with stands of Nipa Palms

Nypa fruticans

Nypa fruticans, known as the attap palm , nipa palm , and mangrove palm or buah atap , buah nipah , dừa nước , Ging Pol in Sinhala in Sri Lanka and gol pata , dani . It is the only palm considered a mangrove in the Mangroves Biome...

.