The great inland way

We farewelled Townsville and took the back road over the Hervey Range to meet up with the Gregory Highway which is part of the Great Inland Way from Sydney to Cooktown. 

We had a final good view of the Townsville area - albeit a little cloudy!

                                    
We arrived in Charters Towers and found this great little park which I’ll always remember as the place that served hot chips with their happy hour! It made for a very happy hour as the chips were delicious and we met some good people.

We looked around Charters Towers and admired the beautiful buildings - but best of all was Target, housed in a lovely old building with an arcade frontage. 

We enjoyed learning some military history at Tower Hill and saw the WW 2 bunkers and interpretive displays. 

The Burdekin river flows alongside the main road for a while and we saw the weir which was quite pretty flowing over the rocks. This river is second to our Murray River in agricultural importance. 

                                     
The weather has gradually become cooler as we travel south and we’ve now put away our summer gear and even purchased a blanket to pop in our beds as we’ve had some frosty mornings!! We stopped at this little place Capella and walked into town to see the impressive war memorial.

We really think that the Great Inland Way could be called the great wavy way as in places the road was very rough and undulating - much worse for a couple travelling on a motor bike!!  It also is used by many large vehicles and in one instance, we were held up for a while as the trucks took up the whole road. We think they’re all mining equipment as this area is a rich mining area. 

At Roma, we’re set up in this quaint place called Ups & Downs - it’s very casual, quiet and has all the facilities we need. It’s got lots of old equipment, cars, trucks etc around to add to the quirkiness. Sadly, the place is for sale following a marriage breakdown so probably won’t be here much longer. 

We really wanted to see the Roma cattle sales but they were on yesterday and none till next week - we are however going on a tour of the facility at 8.30 in the morning. 

We can’t have our own camp fire so if we want to keep warm, we have to go over to the communal fire pit for happy hour! Some of the happy hours are not exactly that - some are rather boring. However, unless we pop into bed under our new blankets, we will have to be sociable. 

Until the next blog, we sign off and will have some Roma snippets next  time. Love from the travellers. ❌❌❌❌