ROPER RIVER, NT. — In October 1844, Ludwig Leichhardt left from Jimbour, on the Darling Downs, on an expedition to find a new route to Port Essington, near Darwin.
Leichhardt was a passionate botanist who had an interest in exploration, although he lacked the necessary bush survival skills.
Whilst making his way up the western side of the Gulf of Carpentaria a year later, on October 19, 1845, his party came to a freshwater river, estimated to be 460km wide.
Leichhardt named it after one of his own men, John Roper, who had seen the river two days earlier on a scouting mission to find the best route. As the party began to cross the Roper River, three of the best horses stumbled down steep banks and drowned.
With fewer horses remaining to carry the load, Leichhardt regretfully had to destroy most of his botanical specimens, which he had been collecting for the past year.
Ludwig Leichhardt was born on October 23, 1813, in the hamlet of Sabrodt near the village of Trebatschin in Prussia and studied in Germany. Leichhardt arrived in Sydney, Australia, on February 14, 1842 and passed away in 1848.
