Nepean River
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The Nepean River is a river in the coastal region of New South Wales, Australia. The headwaters of the Nepean River rise near Robertson, about 100 kilometers south of Sydney and about 15 kilometers from the coast. The river flows north in an unpopulated water catchment area into Nepean Dam, which supplies water for Sydney. North of the dam, the river forms the western edge of the Sydney Basin, flowing past the towns of Camden and Penrith. Near Penrith it is joined by the Warragamba River. North of Penrith the Nepean becomes renamed as the Hawkesbury River.
When the British colony was established at Sydney in 1788, the Royal Navy men in charge of the settlement went exploring by boat. They discovered the mouth of the Hawkesbury River about 50 kilometers north of Sydney Harbour and followed the river upstream, naming it after Charles Jenkinson, 1st Earl of Liverpool, who at that time was titled Baron Hawkesbury.
Meanwhile, Watkin Tench of the Royal Marines set off to walk inland, west of Sydney. About 60 kilometers inland, at the foot of the Blue Mountains, he discovered a large river which he named Nepean after a different British politician, Evan Nepean. It took the Navy and the Army about three years to realise they had discovered the same river and given it two different names.