Roma

Carnarvon Gorge – Roma:  18 July [247 km]

After the strange start to yesterday, today was fine and sunny.  It was great to be woken by the continual laughing of many kookaburras in the trees around the resort.  After they had finished, a myriad of other birds started their calls:  it was beautiful to listen to all these different calls.  Tim walked to the top of a lookout near the Resort to look at the escarpments and cliffs of Carnarvon Gorge in the morning sun.  Then we packed Chaunticleer and set off:  we said goodbye to some of the locals (of which there were lots around the Resort) and, after travelling more than 12,000 from Canberra, we finally saw some emus as we back tracked to the Carnarvon Highway!

 

We also have discovered that there is a route from Sydney to Cooktown called the Great Inland Way:  and our travel from Emerald to Lightning Ridge is on the Great Inland Way.

Once on the highway, we had a smooth run to Injune – although it was not without its interest.  The highway runs beside some of the enormous sandstone cliffs and then winds over passes through these cliffs.  There is some great country in the Central Highlands.  The Carnarvon Highway itself does leave a bit to be desired:  for a considerable way, the sealed pavement is quite narrow and in very poor condition.  Managing road trains – both passing and avoiding – took quite a bit of skill.

We had a latish morning tea in Injune.  This is quite a pretty little town located up in the Highlands.  Indeed, the environment is such that this area is probably better described as a semi-arid region in the heart of Queensland.  The Visitor Centre is co-located with a very nice café, so we enjoyed tea, coffee and raisin toast in this popular spot while watching the world go by.

The run through to Roma was uneventful and we arrived in the early afternoon.  We booked in to our cabin and then walked into town.  As with other rural towns across Australia, there is little happening on Sundays.  Roma is the ‘hot spot’ in Australia for the bottle tree.  In fact, Roma has the largest bottle tree in Australia.  

The citizens of Roma have used their interest in the bottle tree by establishing an Avenue of Heroes through the commercial centre of the town – a bottle tree has been planted in memory of each person killed in action during the 1914-18 World War.  This line of bottle trees looks very effective as a living memorial.

After we had lunch, Chaunticleer received a very well earned wash at a local car wash:  not only were there accumulated insects as well as all the dust from driving in to Carnarvon Gorge but we also travelled behind some cattle road trains near Injune.  What a mess on Chaunticleer!  We enjoyed dinner at the Queens Arms Hotel.