By the numbers
1 car
2 cemeteries
7 kms walking
The morning started crisp as the temperature said that we would be as low as 3 degrees in the morning and I could believe it. We did not even need to leave our room for breakfast as we had bread for toast and coffee. Though the annoying part is the internet is a little iffy depending on where you want to access the internet. The motel wifi just gets a signal in the room and I ended up having the laptop on the portable fridge to get a decent signal. Then the laptop wanted to perform updates that lasted several hours.
We were up early to visit the saleyards in Roma for their Tuesday morning tour. It was a 5 minute drive down the road, but there were already plenty of people at the site, and that was not the workers. Other tourists had appeared out of the woodwork and there were over a dozen caravans in the parking lot with campers as well. The carpark was full of people too. At the start of the tour the farmer who was taking us counted at least 150 in the one group, while another bloke had taken another. Before we met for the tour we ended up in the interactive centre about the history of the sale yards. And that the Roma yards is where the prices for the rest of the country are set for the week. Plus the cattle from pretty much all over Queensland except for the tick country areas.
Once we were frere of the crowds that were filling up the interactive museum and it actually slowed everyone down a bit. We ended up on the tour where they explained that they could track the cattle from the farm to the saleyards and beyond. If they lost the tags and then it would be costly. The last truck had to be at the yard by 8pm the night before or else they would miss the sale. Everything has a paper trail. I got to listen to the auctioneers do their thing and they knew what they were looking for with the people who were below on ground level. Once the tour had ended we went through the interactive centre again as all the mass hordes of tourists had vanished. Caravans had gone too. That got us a little worried about accommodation in the other places we are staying.
Back into town we went and headed to a museum that was called Up the Creek Garage. It was actually interesting. It was us going on holiday to look at someone elses holidays in years gone by through parts of the United States with friends using vehicles that seem to have come from there to be part of the museum. They had done Route 66 and other routes that took them past places like New York and Wyoming. They had plenty of photos and even trips around New Zealand. They had the cars to back up their stories from their trips including a Lincoln. It was a nice little museum with a little bit of family history about two farm properties their family owns with stories from the newspapers. They have two long horn cows as well, which have different personalities. Mum got to feed them and we had a chat with the owners who were full of information.
Once we went on our way, we ended up having a look at Roma’s biggest bottle tree that was not very far from where we are staying. Mum went for a rest at the motel, while I ended up going for a wander, although after seeing all those tourists at the saleyards we were worried that we would get stuck looking for somewhere to stay, so booked the next two places in the journey. We havnt looked at Longreach yet especially since we don’t want to get stuck. The next two places are Charleville and Euromanga. I just need to sort out Longreach and then things should be alright. For my wander I headed to the Roma cemetery for a look around. On the way I heard some dogs and thought to myself with a gate that was open, what if a big dog came running out. Then it happened a big dog came running out barking at me. I kept walking and all it did was sniff me and go back home. The cemetery was only small and it had been started around the 1880s. The sun was slowly going down and I didnt want to get stuck anywhere in the dark. I wandered off back towards town and then found another little historic cemetery. I followed the sign and found opposite the the railway station there had been an old cemetery, where the headstones were no longer there. It had been earlier than the other cemetery. The streets of Roma are wide as most country roads seem to be with plenty of space, but no footpaths everywhere.
Its been a good short stop in Roma even if I havnt seen that much of the town, I bet that would be the future though I am happy that Roma is a pitstop for the first part of the journey. Some of the roads further out west might have water near them so we shall see what happens.
