Sediment yields have been measured for over 30 years in the Magela Creek basin in northern Australia. Sediment yields are low by global standards because of resistant bedrock, dense vegetative cover during the wet season and extremely long periods of tropical weathering. However, they are further reduced by the sediment trapping effect of flood plains, floodouts, various types of billabongs and extensive wetlands. While suspended sediment yields exceed bedload yields in this deeply weathered, tropical landscape the amount of sand transported as suspended sand and bedload greatly exceeds that for silt and clay. In the past, it has been assumed that bedload constitutes about 10 % of the suspended sediment load. In the Magela Creek catchment, the reverse is true. Nevertheless, even sand is totally stored above topographic base level or the sea. Longitudinal continuity of sediment transport is rarely maintained in this landscape. Floodplains trap about 50 % of the supplied total sediment load and floodouts store 100 % of the bedload. Backflow billabongs are efficient traps of silt and clay. As a result, suspended sediment and bedload do not move progressively from the summit to the sea along Magela Creek. We constructed a sediment budget for lower Magela Creek wetlands that demonstrate of the 48000 t/yr supplied to the wetlands from upstream and from tributaries for the period 2003/04 to 2012/13, only 4000 t/yr were exported to the East Alligator River estuary and about 90.5 % of the total sediment load input, much more than previously estimated, was trapped by the wetland. Lower Magela Creek wetland functions essentially as a terminal sediment trap.