Southern rural Queensland towns have many attractions

We have been very impressed by the state of the roads in the south west region of outback Queensland. Not sure whether its only because of the recent floods where more than the usual maintenance has been happening, but the fact that they keep a wide enough verge, flush with the road itself, so that vehicles don’t get damaged if they come off the road and so that trees and shrubs can’t fall and damage the roads, is something that our Goulburn Mulwaree Council can learn from.

We’ve spent the last couple of weeks moving around a lot, feeling like we’ve had enough of the outback but not yet wanting to go home. After we left Eromanga, we moved through Bulloo, Eulo, Cunnamulla, Wyandra, Charleville, Roma, Wycombe, St. George, Dirranbandi, Nindigully and Condamine.

Cunnamulla has an excellent artesian spa centre, with numerous different temperature baths to choose from, a steam room, sauna and a relaxation room, all built overlooking the Paroo River.

Charleville has a few attractions to entice visitors. The Historic House museum is stuffed with old things, some of which we recognised including the White brand sewing machine, that we also have at home, although ours is in better condition! The WWII Secret Base is really just a collection of replica items and posters of information of when the US Army had approximately 3500 soldiers stationed there.

We missed the chance to go on the Cosmos Centre tour by 1 minute as we didn’t book ahead, the tour was fully booked (with 11 people) and just leaving as we arrived. With another tour not scheduled for over an hour, we didn’t wait around, but consoled ourselves by going to the Bilby Experience, where they are raising the endangered greater bilby and getting ready to release more into the predator-free reserve they have set aside. Buy Easter Bilbies instead of bunnies – there is a donation that goes from Darrell Lea to help the Save the Bilby fund.

Roma has the largest stock saleyards in the southern hemisphere, and with sales of cattle currently making records, we thought we’d check it out. They have trucks of cattle coming in all week ready for the sale each Tuesday. The Tuesday we went there, there were 10,000 cattle for sale, in pens of around 15-25 animals, that each get sold on cents per kilo price, and weighed later to confirm the final price the buyer has to pay. The buyers are usually agents who know within a few kilos what a pen of cattle will weigh and therefore will be very close to understanding what the full price will be for their customers. It is a very efficient operation, with all sold cattle weighed and freighted back out to the abattoirs, feedlots or farms by the next day.

St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Roma is known for its collection of stained glass and leadlight windows. The difference being that stained glass has more details painted on the glass and kiln fired, usually found in the older windows, and leadlight is the coloured glass cut to shape to make images and held together with lead cames (H-shaped strips). The mix of older and more modern windows was really interesting.

Warroo River bridge campground is going down in our travels as one of our favourite campsites as we had a long stretch of the river to ourselves and there was plenty of flat area. We just wish we’d brought our fishing lines, as the water birds were looking well fed, and fish were jumping out of the water. Dirrinbandi was a place we wanted to revisit because of the bakery, owned by a Russian/Ukrainian family, so there are a few eastern European treats there that Mark couldn’t resist. Unfortunately their version of Napoleon, Mark’s favourite cake, has been Australianised and tastes more like a vanilla slice.

We have been at Chinchilla the last few days with a wonderful group of Explorers, many of whom we have met up with before. More on that next time…