Repairs, relaxing and rustic camping at Roma

St George has a pleasant walkway on the riverbank with exercise stations, who needs a gym?  The locals are friendly and the streets mainly wide and tree-lined- a very attractive town with 4 pubs, 4 banks (though only 2 ATM's, one of which was OOO.

     Balonne River, St George- a raging torrent just 6-8 weeks ago, now peaceful and calm.

We'd been advised by several people to stop at Surat, on the way to Roma.  What a nice little town, and the Cobb & Co museum is worth a visit (gold coin donation).  Nowhere to park the caravan in the main street but the street next to the river, parallel to the main street, has plenty of room plus a nice shady park where we saw our first bottle tree.

Main street of Surat.  Museum, aquarium, art gallery, coffee shop, and a few other things in this building.

While driving across the continuing vast plains (though more elevated and more undulating now), we were reminded of the comment made on the Time Traveller show on TV on Sunday, about Australia being a flat red country- we coastal dwellers are not constantly aware of that fact, but it's very true.

While doing his normal stop for a check which he does about 15 minutes after leaving each morning, Chris discovered a loose connection in the Anderson plug which connects the car electrics to the caravan and runs the frig while we are moving.  He did running repairs but needed to see an auto electrician in Roma. James carried out roadside repairs around the corner from his place of work (we couldn't get the caravan closer) and all seems to be well now.  James said Roma had just had a very successful Easter in the Country festival (we were aware this was on, and avoided it).  We'd actually met someone in Mungindi who'd been there, he sells pegs (very good pegs, we bought some from him) and also plays harmonica in a band- he'd done both in Roma.  He offered to play the harmonica for us but Chris suddenly remembered an urgent appointment.  We both hate harmonicas and especially country music.

Repairs at Roma.  Note the bottle trees, part of a memorial avenue to fallen servicemen.

So, finally, to our destination, Meadowbank, a farm with a museum and camping grounds about 14 kilometres outside Roma on the Warrego Highway.  It's a comedown after last night, very rustic, complete with frogs in the toilet, but very quiet and I'm sure we'll sleep well, possums aside.  Possums made a bit of a racket at Mungindi and we woke the last morning after a few drops of rain to see where they'd been sliding down the windscreen of the car- what fun!

                      Amenities block- hot water is heated by a donkey engine (ie, a fire).

                                    Those windblown grass seeds again- stuck on the fence.

                                    The Meadowbank homestead, with a good example of a bottle tree