I Love a Sunburnt Country.

# The 3 Rs: Roma, Rolleston, Rockhampton.

We are really up to Q and I was going to write about Queenstown in Tasmania but it is a little while since we did our Tassie road trip so I am jumping straight onto R because that trip, which we arrived home from yesterday, is fresh in my mind.

I could not count the number of road trips I have made from South-East Queensland to Central Queensland over the decades, or the number of times I have driven The Bruce, The Burnett or The Leichhardt Highways, or combinations of these. But this trip was different, amidst all the familiar places we travelled some new roads and visited some places for the first time.

So firstly to Roma some 350 klms from home along the Warrego Highway. This was my first visit to Roma and for sure it will not be the last. We coincided this trip at a time when my niece, her hubby and a collection of their family were in Roma for a Brangus Bull sale. We loved Bakearoma Bakery and Coffee Lounge in the main street, the bottle-tree lined streets and Heroes Avenue lined with bottle trees for each of the districts fallen soldiers in WW1.

We always make a point of leaving money in smaller towns and so went to the Golders store and hubby bought Australian Sheepskin ugg boots for next winter. The lovely young woman who served us added a further discount to the already sale price as a thank you for our patronage and as a nod to hubby’s military service.

Ace Drapers is a famous Roma Haberdashery; it is overflowing with stock and has become a Roma legend; the saying that people visit Roma just to see it is quite correct. As we sat at dinner in Rolleston the night after leaving Roma we overheard a group of grey nomads discussing their next stop, which would be Roma, and saying, we must go to that drapery everyone talks about! Personally, I was not temped by Ace’s. We sat outside for awhile and I looked in and yes it is overflowing with stock. Maybe I’ll venture in next visit; people keep telling me I should!

As always for me it is the people who make life and the opportunity to catch up with loved ones and share in a part of their life and livelihood was the highlight of my Roma visit. We braved the Roma Sale Yards and I have to say Roma was full of cattle trucks coming and going and the atmosphere was filled with the very earthy smell they bring. It is a good honest smell!

• 

• 

We left Roma via Injune bound for the Carnarvon Gorge on the Carnarvon Highway. Our trip into the Gorge itself was a reconnaissance tour to suss out the area for a later visit. We chatted to all sorts of folk and I kept on hearing Takarakka which is a Bush Resort close by, so I ascertained this is the place to stay for a few days to take in the natural beauty of the Gorge. It really is spectacular! So that is a trip for the future!

So onward to Rolleston. I did not know anything about Rolleston but choose a night there for the location. Rolleston is the crossroads of the Carnarvon, Dawson and Gregory Highways and that is about all! Its other claim to fame is that is is the closest town to the north of Carnarvon. We spent the night at the motel attached to the pub. The pub food was good but the accommodation very basic.

The next morning we took the Dawson Highway over to Bauhinia to meet up with the Fitzroy Development Road which took us through the Aboriginal Settlement of Woorabinda ( more of that story when we get to W) and over to the Capricorn Highway at Duaringa and eastwards into Rockhampton. Now I am in my old stamping grounds.

We travelled 2441 klms driving on The Warrego, Carnarvon, Dawson, Bruce, Burnett, Isis, D’agular and New England Highways as well as The Fitzroy Development Road. We drove on wide, dusty, gravel roads, on dusty, dirt tracks, on thin strips of bitumen with scary drop-offs on the shoulders, well sealed roads and fast four lane highways. We travelled from bull sales in the bush to the geographical wonder of the Carnarvon Gorge, to high-rise beach-side apartments at Yeppoon, to historical Seventeen-Seventy, to beautiful Bargara and home to our spectacular, spring time Garden City.

But for all of that it was a tour of visitation; it was a time of catching up with so many wonderful and beautiful people; a walk down memory lane. Next blog is about the people! I love our beautiful sunburnt country and I love travelling through it, for me though, usually quite predominately in the mix, it’s the people we are on our way to visit. They are my everyday heroes and it is they who make my life truly rich and I hope I never replace people with places or things.