29-31/05/23. Back Where We Started.

Almost two years ago we packed all of our stuff (what remained after a purge of selling and giving away) into a storage shed in Roma, on the assumption that we would soon be moving it into new digs in South Australia. Then along came house sitting and we ended up quite enjoying living in other people's houses and looking after other people's pets, and all our stuff stayed snugly in its shed. Now we had to visit our shed, find out what had survived the mouse plague in which we left it, and retrieve some minor necessities that we hadn't intended to abandon for quite so long.

Last farewell to pineapples.

 

We made sure to make the most of the last cooked breakfast before leaving the pineapple palace and getting on the road to Roma. Roger was in his element, oohing and aahing over the parlous state of the Toowoomba bypass and greeting his old friend the Warrego Highway with fond recognition and anticipation of many changes at various intersections. The Warrego spooled under our wheels and the Queensland winter did its best impersonation of a Melbourne summer day, just warmer and more predictable.

Should a new road need this much work?

Farmfest was on the following week. The Farmfest flags, brightly coloured, stood to attention in the stiff breeze.

We stopped in Oakey for First Morning Coffee, the railway station providing both protection from the wind, exposure to the sun, and graffiti for visual interest.

Why thank you, Oakey!

I do like the artist's use of colour, shape, and perspective on the challenging work surface.

The wagons may have been there a while given the extent of invasion by greenery.

 

In Dalby we took a half hour break to do Quick Work Things,

Temporary office.

and by lunch time we were at Chinchilla's Botanic Park. The water playground was closed - no problem, we hadn't planned to paddle anyway. The toilets were all closed too - yes problem, for obvious reasons.  We decamped to the less fancy but open-toileted park down the road - no toilet paper. Chinchilla was failing us in ways it had not done before, so we left before any more disappointments could happen. 

The Warrego showed the wear and tear of three good wet seasons, in places providing a ride that could out-bounce any trampoline. Out in the paddocks, lines of windmills marched toward the horizon where two years ago there was only cultivation and open sky.

Turn your back for almost two years and someone goes on a windmill-planting spree.

Past Miles, the last hour and a half was measured by tiny towns: Drillham; Dulacca; Jackson; Yuleba; Wallumbilla. We stopped in Jackson and reminisced about the time we broke down here one night and had to wait hours for a tow-truck with the small consolation that even if there wasn't anywhere to get food or drink, there was at least a public toilet block.

Jackson: old church and streets.

Too much thinking about breakdowns made us nervous, so we got on our way via a quick tour of the real estate market in Jackson.

State of the market in Jackson.

 

We rolled into Roma with an hour of daylight left to spare and used it to walk the Adungadoo pathway, cockatoos screeching above us as they settled into the grand old gums for the night. Thus we completed a circle and came back to where we started on 12/07/2021, some not-quite-two years and (very approximately) 14000km ago.

 

A food truck was open at the front of the Big Rig Caravan Park. The park staff assured me that it was there permanently and served really good food. It wasn't a very big food truck.  "Do you come from one of the pubs,?" I asked, as I ordered my overgrown serve of lasagna with token salad on the side. "Oh no!" came the reply. "It's a full commercial kitchen in there, can serve 250 people from this truck. The truck came from the movie studios on the Gold Coast." Which, if I'm not mistaken, meant that I was eating movie star (or at least, crew and extras) food, and very tasty it was too.

The food truck was well hidden behind the gazebo.

Roma was far enough from the sea that the temperature plummeted as soon as the sun went down. Although I love camping, sometimes it's nice not to have to wear thermal underwear and two pairs of socks to bed, mummified in a sleeping bag with a topping of survival blanket. I thoroughly enjoyed snuggling up in my normal pyjamas, lulled to sleep by the happy roar of a heater doing its job.

Home for a little while: Big Rig Caravan Park.