Back on the road again in 2018

After three and a half years spent busily building a shed and house and putting in gardens etc., we started off again from Koondrook and traveled north through Deniliquin, Conargo, Jerilderie and stayed our first night at Narrandera.
From there we followed the Newell highway through Forbes and Parkes and stayed the second night at Dubbo.
Our third day on the road took us to Gilgandra where we left the Newell highway and joined the Castlereagh highway which goes through Gulargambone, Coonamble, Walgett and onto Lightning Ridge.
We covered all these areas on our previous trip around Australia, so we breezed through most of it with our mind set on getting to some warmer weather.
Most of this area to the north of Gilgandra is already effected by drought and all the little towns are doing it hard.  It is surprising what extent some towns will go to to keep the spirit alive during these hard times.  One of these very noticeable towns is Gulargambone which had recently run an art competition to paint various building around the town with murals.

Ghosts of Bullocks past sculpture

They have done a fantastic job which certainly brightens the town up.  Locals say that business is up and even the caravan park is booked out most nights.  The town got a grant and did the “Gulargambone Flying Ahead Sculptures Project” in 2004, which saw dozens of corrugated iron cockatoos being made and put up on poles at both entrances to the town as well as some in town.   
Another project just completed is called “Ghosts of Bullocks Past”.  This is a sculpture of 6 life size bullocks made with a steel frame and covered with recycled wire netting.  The bullocks are assembled in a team and harnessed up to a bullock wagon.  This sculpture is in a park right on the main road and just about everyone driving through stops to take some photos. 
This gives visitors the opportunity then to look at the other murals and get a coffee from the local 2828 cafe.

Lightning Ridge Caravan Park

Last time we were in Lightning Ridge, we enjoyed it so we decided to take a break from travel every day and stayed in the Opal Caravan Park for a few days, which is just on the outskirts of town.There are 2 very funny ladies who do a show every afternoon at the caravan park reciting bush poetry their way and telling some very funny stories.  A great way to finish off the day.

Glengarry Hilton Dining Room

We revisited the “3 Pubs in the Scrub” which are out at the Garwin Opal fields about 60 kilometres from Lightning Ridge.  The Glengarry Hilton does a great steak sandwich with enough chips to make us wish our grandson was with us to help us finish them off.

Glengarry Hilton old toilet block

You wouldn’t believe it but, in the middle of a drought, on the day we had to pack up to leave, it rained.  It certainly wasn’t a drought breaker but enough to get us wet while packing up.

With our minds still set on warmer weather, we kept heading north through Hebel, St.George and onto Roma where we stayed on a farm stay about 12 kilometres to the west of town.

Roma Big Rig Visitor Centre

As we drove in to town we noticed the sale yards and a sign to say that they do guided tours during the sale, which happened to be the next day.  Up early the next morning we headed back to the sale yards for the tour along with about 100 other like minded tourists.

Cattle at Roma sale Yards

  Who would have thought it would be so popular.  4,000 head of cattle were going under the hammer and we were told that this was a small sale.  Their record is 10 head short of 14,000 in one sale.  Judging by the activity today, the day they broke their record would have been pandemonium.  The guide told us that these sale yards sell cattle from as far away as the Northern Territory but mostly from within their shire which is 58,000 square miles in size.  That’s almost the size of the whole of Tasmania which is 64,000 square miles.  
Cattle are sold in the pens by cents per kilogram live weight.  The guide told us that the buyers can estimate the weight of the cattle to within about 10 kilograms.  Once sold, the cattle are herded through a series of well designed alley ways and gates to the weighbridge where they are weighed as a lot and the average weight displayed on a screen.

This one weighed 400 Kilograms and sold for $768.00

 Buyers can take a pick out of a pen and it was interesting to see this one come through to the weighbridge on it’s own. Must have been something special that this buyer wanted.  We came away thinking that we would need to know a lot more about cattle before attempting to do any buying.

Roma's biggest bottle tree

Roma is also home to the Queensland Bottle tree.  This one, which is the biggest one in town, was transplanted here as a mature tree in 1927 and is now over 100 years old.  These trees are known to live for more than 200 years.  This tree is 6 metres high, it’s canopy is 20 metres in diameter and it measures 9.51 metres around it’s trunk.
Moving on from Roma we traveled north along the Carnarvon Highway to a height of 466 metres over the Great Dividing Range, and down the other side into Injune and Rolleston and then onto the Dawson highway to Springsure, passing through some lovely rocky country along the way. 

Part of the Virgin mountain range

From there we followed the Gregory highway to Lake Maraboon which is about 25 kilometres  on the south side of Emerald.  
Hopefully our stay here will be filled with Red Claw, the Queensland version of yabbies.

View of Lake Maraboon taken from under our caravan awning