Reaching Roma and Visiting Virgin Rock (Springsure)

Tuesday 21^st May

My being in denial about Paul going off to Afghanistan has come to a crushing end and I shed a few quiet tears last night.

We drove off early and arrived at Surat mid-morning. It is a quite nice little town and has an Art Gallery, a Museum dedicated to Cobb and Co and an Aquarium displaying all the different types of fish found in the local rivers. I found that quite interesting and something a bit different!!!!

 

We went to the local café and had a bite to eat.

It was probably just as well we didn’t notice the sign out front until after the event!!!!!

 

Fortunately we ordered the pies!

 

 

Then we headed off to Roma and opted to stay at the Showgrounds. We decided to take an unpowered site for $11.00.

Paul rang to say goodbye (more quiet tears). He sounded very upbeat and happy now that all the organisational rubbish is over and done with. He seems much more relaxed than I. He flew out about 11.00 pm.

Wednesday 22^nd May

It is freezing again and raining! I’m sure my toes are about to drop off. Maybe we should have paid the extra a got the powered site.

I have now taken to my bed, it is soooo cold. It has not stopped raining all day. We have spent our day reading, shivering, knitting, shivering, eating, shivering, watching TV and shivering.

Thursday 23^rd May

We woke this morning to a blanket of fog. It looked so lovely, I sent Ron out (in case it was still cold) to take some photos.

 

 

Because a foggy morning usually heralds a sunny day, I decided to try out my new semi-automatic washing machine (read plunger that Ron bought).

 

I must say, it worked a treat!

 

We then packed up Indie and headed off. Ron heard on the radio that in the area yesterday had been one of the coldest May days on record. It was certainly the coldest day we have had.

We bought supplies, stopped for chocolate éclairs and coffee by the side of the road and arrived in Injune around 2.00 pm. We pulled into (861) Injune Caravan Park ($27.50) and set up camp and hung out the washing. I am not holding out much hope for it being dry in the morning.

Ron decided to have a bit of a rest; his back was a bit sore and so I went for a walk around town.

 

  I walked past the pub, went to the Spar supermarket and bought  Ronnie a chocolate to make him feel better, browsed in the newsagency and the tourist information centre, found the hairdresser and got my hair cut ($30.00 – thanks for coming) and was back within 45 minutes. Not a big town!!!

I’m sure I must be at least three kilos lighter now.

 

While I was at the hairdresser, she told me about a walking track by the creek behind the caravan park so I walked down there as well. Turns out it was not so much a creek as a little pond.

 

It was really pleasant walking as the weather had turned out to be very mild, so much so, that after we had had our dinner, Ron and I went for a stroll around town together.

Friday 24^th May

Oh, the best laid plans…..I got up this morning, checked the washing and headed straight off to the laundry (which happens to double as the Injune Laundromat) and put all my washing through the dryer. Then I figured, in for a penny in for a pound (so to speak) and did another load as well. With that all sorted, we headed off down the road. It was a glorious, warm day (in Indie) as we travelled along.

The landscape was completely different with outcrops of rocks and gorges as we skirted Carnarvon National Park.

 

We stopped at (432) Beazley Park, a day stop only at Rolleston for lunch.

From there, we headed to Springsure and stopped at (428) Virgin Rock Rest Area, 1.5 kms north of town.  If you squint and hold your mouth just right, you can see what looks a bit like the outline of the Virgin Mary in the rock. Apparently it used to be more pronounced but according to the sign it has eroded a bit.

 

 

The local council is quite proud of their rock however and it is even floodlit at night and does look quite spectacular out here in the middle of nowhere!

We found a parking spot (eventually). It is only a small area and it was packed pretty tight. We wandered around and found some folk to chat with.

First up, we met Arthur, Lyn and their little dog Molly from Victoria. Lyn had tripped over the dog and broken her wrist here a couple of days ago. Fortunately, there is a hospital here and she is going back in a couple of days, when the swelling subsides a bit more to have a proper plaster put on so they can resume their travels in their big coach.

 

Then we were joined by Barb, who will be 80 in July. She is travelling alone just in a little Corolla car that she camps in.

 

 

And finally there was Allan, an ex truckie, also almost 80, driving a Hino bus.

 

 

Talk about diverse people and diverse transports. 

We had a great time swapping stories for a good couple of hours. Then the sun went down and it turned quite cold again. We all fled to our respective vehicles and turned in for the night.

Saturday 25^th May

We were up, breakfasted and ready to go when we decided – why? Arthur, Lyn and Allan were staying and they were nice so we decided to stay as well.

There was still a chill in the air but it was lovely and sunny and we spent the early morning chatting.

I spotted a butterfly on a nearby gum and went into nature photography mode.

 

It was very windy and it was blowing around something fierce so I decided to grab a picture of Molly instead – at least she was stationary!

 

I then set about wrestling with a reindeer (my latest knitting project) and arguing with antlers while Ronnie had a lie down and a bit of a read.

We had new neighbours move in, Keith and Val from Victoria.

 

She popped over to see what I was doing and we had a great old time nattering about knitting and other odds and sods.

Around lunchtime, Allan decided to drive into town to get some fish and chips.

He had been gone no more than two minutes when Andre and his wife Gerry lobbed in and pinched his spot.

 

They do a lot of fossicking and had some really nice gemstones, amethyst, garnet and crystals with them. They send them to Thailand to be cut.

After Allan returned, we all sat together and talked and shared travel tales.

We got a call from Paul around 4.00 pm. It was so lovely to hear from him so soon. He sounds great. He rang to check out how we were going and catch up on last night’s footy with Ron.  He couldn’t tell us what his immediate plans are (or he will have to kill us lol).

After that, Ron and I re-joined our little group of happy campers and we all chatted for a while and then the sun sank and that was it! It got quite cold and everyone headed indoors except Ron and me of course. We braved the elements, had dinner and even sat outside for a while longer. We spotted two satellites, figured our job was done and headed inside to the relative warmth of Indie.

Ron has now retired to listen to the footy on the radio and I will do some more knitting.