Day 8 – Roma – Charleville

 

An early start saw us all packed up and ready to go by 8 am – Gaz to find the mechanic and I joined the others to tour the Roma Saleyards. The saleyards were amazing – our guide, Geoff, who had whip in hand, told us all about the process of the sales. He said an average sale might see 6000-8000 head of cattle sold in a day but the highest is 14,000. Today there were only 2700, perhaps, he supposed, because of the recent rains. We were fascinated to see the auctioneer in action and also enjoyed watching the ease with which the staff moved the beasts around from pen to pen, marking them, weighing them etc. The technology was amazing – they even have electronic e-tag devices that read the cattle as they go under the scanners in to be weighed.

Our next stop was St Paul’s Anglican Church where we were met by Anne who told us all about the history of the church and, in particular, its many lead light windows. The stories of these windows were incredible – one was found under the church after 100 years, still in good decision. It was an interesting tour with quite a few interesting stories.

Kev then dropped me off to meet up with Gaz who unfortunately had not been able to get the wipers fixed but did have it confirmed that we need a part … a part that is not available anywhere out here. He later made some phone calls and has ordered the part to be delivered to Rockhampton where we will be in a bit over a week. So, that’s a week without wipers … hmmm. Anyway, Kev, Maz, Wayne & Vicky headed off to Carnarvon Gorge for a few days and we headed to Charleville. We will meet up with them again in Longreach on Friday.

We had an uneventful drive to Charleville, stopping at Morven, a small town, for a really nice lunch – egg & bacon rolls for both of us. We found our motel in Charleville, unpacked the car, and then after a bit of car stuff, (calls re parts, insurance etc), we took off to check out the town. We found the water source for the town, a very prettily painted artesian basin water tower. The Information Centre was helpful as usual, and we have booked in for the Bilby Experience tomorrow morning. We headed out to the airport and looked through a couple of exhibitions. The first was The Royal Flying Doctors which was fascinating and good fun. They really do an amazing job. 

The second stop was the WWII Secret Base. Now this was incredible – thousands of American service personnel took over the Charleville airport during the war and the locals were sworn to secrecy. It is assumed it was part of the Brisbane Line, the same one that the Tenterfield Tank Traps were part of. It was fascinating but unfortunately it was about to close so we had to race through in 15 minutes.

We took a spin around the airport that was nearby and then headed back to town to grab some groceries. Gaz dropped me off at the Warrego River where I took the new Riverwalk pathway for a nice walk and then found my way back to the motel. It was then time to relax for a while, make a bread roll for dinner, partake of a glass of wine … or two, and plan for our next few days. And … we watched some TV for the first time in a week! Incredibly the adds are for Darwin, Alice Springs, Mt Isa and a couple of closer towns - we are really in the outback now.