Roper Bar - NT

Roper Bar is a tiny settlement on the Roper River. These days the town is a small settlement with a police station, a hotel/motel, the Roper Bar Store, a caravan park and roadhouse facilities. The partially unsealed road from the Stuart Highway is flat and monotonous but the end result is a picturesque tropical river which, like all of the rivers around the Gulf of Carpentaria, is unsuitable for swimming as it is the habitat of the estaurine or saltwater crocodile.

The first european to discover the Roper River was Ludwig Leichhardt in 1845 on his expedition from Moreton Bay to Port Essington. He named the river after John Roper a member of the expedition. In recent times fishing in the Roper River, particularly for the prized barramundi, has attracted fishermen to the area.