The man-made river was constructed in 1878 as the Patterson Cut to assist the drainage of coastal swamplands located in what is now the suburb of Carrum.

The river then flows generally southwest (picking up numerous minor drainage channels) and drops to a lower level at a weir and fishway underneath the Mornington Peninsula Freeway, before emptying into Beaumaris Bay, an eastern bight of Port Phillip Bay, just north of the Edithvale Wetlands.

The waterway descends merely 5.4 metres (18 ft) over its 5-kilometre (3.1 mi) course, and provides boat access to canals and marinas in the suburbs of Patterson Lakes, Carrum and Bonbeach.

In 1876 it was decided to cut a 10-metre (33 ft) wide channel to Port Phillip Bay through widening and deepening Carrum Creek.

In 1974 the first soil was turned in the preliminary stages of the development of Patterson Lakes, where sites for housing and apartments overlooking the marina and the river were identified.

Bird species include the nankeen (rufous) night heron, white-faced heron, chestnut teal, straw-necked ibis, pacific black duck, pacific gull, silver gull, magpie-lark, Australian pelican, little pied cormorant, royal spoonbill, masked lapwing, whiskered (marsh) tern and caspian tern.