Roma, Qld July 26 2017

Transport day, a 425km leg from Lightning Ridge to Roma. After passing through Hebel the next town is Dirranbandi, where we stopped for a coffee and rest. The roads are good enough with the proviso that they can be quite bumpy at times, not pot-holed, just not flat and smooth - you tend to do a bit or porpoising because its hard to tell when the undulations will hit, except for the cattle-grids, of which there are many. Hebel is touted in Lightning Ridge as an attraction, mainly because of the pub and a 'restaurant', and as far as we could see, there wasn't much of anything else. We did see the strangest thing some time out of Hebel. Out there, in the middle of nothing, there was this black and white dog (think Dog from Footrot Flats) sitting on top of a dog-box of sorts, on the side of the road. It was chained to the said dog-box and eagerly awaiting the return of its master. One could only assume it was there for a reason, maybe it was guarding something important, like a slab of FourX. Who knows. Dirranbandi is the neatest, nicest looking one street town you will ever see. You just had to stop and wander back to the bakery come cafe, where we drank coffee and admired the Russian influenced cakes and of course the brilliant Samovar.

On and on we went, driving straight through St George despite it's charm and coffee shops, right up and into Surat, where we easily found the park by the Balonne river and enjoyed a nice lunch in the van. Just out of town, and on that same river is a nice enough looking free camp, already jam packed at 2.30pm.

We cruised into Roma at about 3 o'clock and settled in, followed by a run to the shops for food and a walk through the very pleasant adjacent park.

Sadly the 'Big Rig Oil and Gas Interpretative Centre and Night Show for an interactive insight into the hardships and heroic stories of oil drilling and exploration' has been cancelled for tonight, and the next cattle sale isn't until Friday, so we'll just have to take an early night and head out first thing in the morning for Charters Towers