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.