Day 6 – Toowoomba – Roma

 

Up bright and early to assist Kev in his endeavours to fix, or at least make usable, the windscreen wipers from the poor car. Wielding his magic, as I knew he would, after some flourishing of tools and expertise, the wipers were declared usable, if somewhat noisy. Having googled and discovered that Roma has a Nissan dealership, it seemed that things were looking up.

I managed to get in an hour of report writing, (yep that earlier job from Tamworth was going nowhere fast), and then we hit the road … just as it started to rain. Oh well, the wipers were engaged and doing OK … until they weren’t. They suddenly stopped working about 30 or 40 minutes into the trip but thankfully it also stopped raining about 5 minutes later. Phew! No worries, we thought, we’ll get it sorted in Roma.

It was an otherwise pleasant drive, passing through Dalby and Chinchilla which both are quite sizable towns. I had googled earlier and thought our best option was a café at Miles as it seemed about halfway and had some sort of tourist exhibition along with it. Of course, it was closed. So after some intrepid U-turns on the Werrego Highway, we sought out some other options and ended up at the IGA café, (well, some strategically placed tables and chairs outside the IGA), and spent the next little while serenaded by passing trucks. Food was good though, after the poor lone employee got over her shock of 6 people walking in and ordering all at once. Wayne and Vicky have joined us on this trip so we are quite the gang!

Next stop Roma and we called into the Tourist Info Centre where a very helpful lady gave us lots of advice on what to see and do in Roma and also prepped us for our next stages – Kev, Maz, Wayne & Vicky are off to Carnarvon Gorge for a couple of days and Gaz and I are heading for Charleville and Blackall and then we’ll meet up again at Longreach on Friday. She also gave us the startling news that the Nissan dealership closed down a year ago … bloody Google. Oh well, that’s gonna be an issue for Tuesday as everything is closed today (Sunday) and tomorrow (Monday, Labour Day public holiday). Even Woolies is closed on Sundays and public holidays here – it’s like welcome to the 1950s!

Thankfully, there is an IGA as well and Maz, Vicky and I headed off to do some grocery shopping. Maz is cooking tonight, I’m doing the picnic lunch tomorrow, and Vicky is cooking tomorrow night. What teamwork! When we got back, it was the boys’ turn and they set out looking for alcohol, a very important endeavour. We gathered for pre-dinner drinks and then Kev & Maz have set the bar high with the first meal, serving up salmon & vegies and then surprised us with homemade stewed fruit and yoghurt for dessert.

After dinner the Road Trip Games began in earnest with Euchre in various forms. Not sure who won but I think the winner was the chocolates and dessert wine consumed during the festivities. Great fun and great company.