The Avoca River drains a substantial part of central Victoria. The river rises at the foot of Mount Lonarch near the small town of Amphitheatre, and flows north for joined by thirteen minor tributaries and through the towns of , and . Two major distributaries leave the Avoca River between Charlton and Quambatook, Tyrrell Creek, flowing to Lake Tyrrell and Lalbert Creek flowing to Lake Lalbert. Although the Avoca River basin is part of the Murray-Darling basin, the Avoca River does not empty into the Murray. Nowhere a large stream, it dwindles as it flows north, eventually terminating in the Kerang Lakes, a network of ephemeral swamps west of Kerang and about south of the Murray River.