HOW THE YARRA GOT ITS NAME: The Murundjeri name for the river was Birra-rung, meaning 'the river of mists', but when a surveyor named John Helder Wedge arrived here in 1836, he stood by the river and pointed upstream toards 'the falls' located across from what is now Williams Street in the city. He asked an indigenous man what the river;s name was. The man, looking at the falls, explained that it was 'flowing flowing, or Yarra Yarra.