Roma to St George

Monday, 28 October 2024

This morning, we started at Ace Drapers a store that is like a hardware store had a baby with Spotlight! It is absolutely stuffed floor to ceiling with fabric, thread, yarn, knitting needles, buttons and other haberdashery items and then all the gaps are filled with everything else that you could possibly think of. So much stuff! I managed to get out of the door with only a couple of rolls of ribbon, but it was fun browsing and I could easily have purchased some lengths of fabric but without a pattern and a definite project in mind I resisted.

Bernie found Camping World Roma which stocked sock savers. We have seen a couple of our guides wearing these short, gaiter-like tubes over their socks and shoes and had thought they seemed a good idea to keep stones and burrs out of your socks and shoes without the bulk of the serious hiking gaiters that we have. I had thought I could make something similar but since Bernie found them in this store, we purchased a pair each. Bernie’s are orange and mine are hot pink!

As we drove out of Roma we passed the enormous saleyards. Roma holds a huge stock sale every week on a Tuesday, and we could see that many of the holding yards already had cattle on site ready for tomorrow’s sales. I’m sure it would be interesting to attend the sales but being in Roma on Tuesday didn’t quite fit with our itinerary. Something to keep in mind if we are passing through another time perhaps.

We passed the sign that confirmed that the road to St George remains open despite last night’s rain. Up here in Queensland at the start of every section of road they have these huge signs up providing information on whether sections of road ahead are open or closed. We’ve been blasé about them with the weather being so hot and dry but now that there has been some rain we might need to take more notice of the status … just in case there is a road closure?

About half and hour out of Roma we spied a Santa Claus made from car tyres at the entrance to a property. It’s still two months until Christmas so has it been put on display early or is it still there from last year??

We had a colour themed naming convention on the road this morning driving through a Green Swamp and a Black Gully. What was really black though was the storm clouds as we drove towards Surat. We continued to see vans heading north and have accepted that we are not the only travellers silly enough to head north after September. At Charters Towers, Bill mentioned that the season has traditionally been from Mother’s Day to Fathers Day, but this year he has been surprised by how many tourists are still coming through in October.

We were still about 12 kilometres from Surat when we found ourselves driving in rain for the first time on this trip. And of course it was chucking it down like only happens in Queensland. Our run of fine weather may have come to and end? Hopefully the rain will continue to be intermittent with no once in a 100 years weather events to cause flooding on the roads we need to use to travel home to Victoria.

This morning in Roma we had to park rear to curb but arriving in Surat just 79 kilometres down the road we were pleased to find that nose in parking was the go. It is just so weird that there are places where rear to curb has been adopted seemingly at random. We always thought it was predominantly a NSW ‘thing’ but we’ve been in a couple of towns in Queensland where it’s been rear to curb.

In Surat we visited the Cobb & Co Changing Station. Surat played a significant role in the Cobb & Co era of the late 19th century when passenger stagecoaches opened up inland Australia for the pioneer settlers. Significantly the Surat to Yuleba run on the 14th of August 1924 was the very last mail coach to run in Australia. The changing station features a 25,000-litre freshwater aquarium that houses fish endemic to the Balonne River including a Murray Cod hiding at the back of the tank that the staff pointed out to us. The art gallery featured some beautiful pieces by local artists and the Cobb & Co Store Museum held a well-curated selection of historic pieces including a magnificent replica of a 14-seater Cobb & Co coach.

Back on the road we were struck by another heavy downpour when we were still about 30 kilometres from St George. There was a lot of water running along the roadsides but fortunately not over the road. We kept driving but saw two vans that had decided to bail out at a Rest Area to wait out the worst of it.

The front passed quickly and just like that it was fine again. It was still a bit cloudy and broody looking but at least it was not chucking it down by the time we reached St George the ‘Inland Fishing Capital of Queensland’. It was already 1.00pm so we decided to find lunch quickly or risk missing out. Cafes close so early in these country towns! Phew, we made it into the Farmhouse Café before the kitchen closed.

After lunch we took a side-trip on the Carnarvon Highway to Nindigully. As we drove out that way, we could see irrigation channels and we are pretty sure cotton growing. The crop was only just spouting so it was hard to say what it was BUT we did pass a huge shed that was emblazoned with a ‘Cotton Growers’ sign so that seemed to confirm that we were in cotton growing country.

We could see some black clouds to the east but experienced only sun showers this afternoon. After a half hour drive from St George, we arrived at the Nindigully Pub on the bank of the Moonie River. The Nindigully Hotel is reputed to be the hotel that holds the longest continuous license in Queensland with the license first issued in 1864! We took photos of the pub and photos of the river. As we were walking back from the river the Murray’s Coach roared into the car park, completed a circuit and roared out again in a cloud of dust. Yep, there’s a bus stop outside the pub beside the phone box and you can catch the bus to Toowoomba five days a week.

We popped into the pub for drinks. It seems the right thing to do. As travellers if we want to have these quirky, iconic destinations to visit we need to support the people who keep them running year after year in often trying conditions. When we were leaving, we chatted to some fellow Victorians in the older model MU-X. They had the ‘Australian Bush Pubs’ book tucked under an arm and in the last 12 months it seems they have visited quite a few.

On the way back to St George we noticed that there were sheep in the paddocks too. As we were heading to check into the Merino Motel we wondered if the sheep were merinos? Surely the motel chose that name because of being in a merino farming district? It’s so much easier to tell cattle apart with their distinctive colours. Sheep are all white. Who can tell what sort of sheep they are, ha, ha.

Back in St George we topped up the truck with Diesel and then checked in at the Merino Motel. After unpacking our gear, we changed into our togs and drove out to the St George Aquatic Centre for a dip in the thermal waters. The complex has a heated artesian pool, a 50-metre lap pool and a children’s splash park. Although the website said that adult entry is $4.00/each we had to pay $6.00/each when we said we wanted to use the thermal pool. Ah well, it’s not like the extra $2.00/head was going to send us broke. A lovely soak in the warm water was just what I needed to loosen up my hip a bit after all that walking at Carnarvon Gorge.

Although the motel has a licensed restaurant, we were the only guests to express any interest in booking for dinner tonight and Cathy and Steve were told that they probably wouldn’t open for only four patrons. Not to worry, it was only a short walk to the Cobb & Co Hotel and their menu was very similar.

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