Day 87 Monday 11th September

We made it to Roma today and booked into the Roma Gun Club for our accommodation. Yes that’s right the Gun Club. It is a lovely place that has a wonderful caravan park attached to it. We have a shaded site with power and water. After unhitching the van we headed to the tourist information centre, visiting “The Big Rig” display which was an excellent display of Australia’s Oil and Gas exploration. In 1900 a drilling crew were searching for water at Roma and accidently found gas and so started Australia’s oil and gas industry. The Big Rig display had a collection of intriguing stories, photos and facts and objects in multi-media exhibits. It certainly helped me understand the oil and gas industry in Australia. An interesting finish to the exhibits was a short video we watched about the influence the industry has had on the area. It was obviously produced by SANTOS and many locals, painted a glowing picture of the industry and how it works with the community. SANTOS had made huge contributions to so many community organisations including the schools, hospital, ambulance and rescue service, police club, community bus etc. etc. They have shop-fronts in Roma and many of the small towns nearby. We returned to the centre of town and visited the bakery for a delicious lunch. I then took off on a self-guided history walk while Rob returned to the van to do some work. He returned later to meet me at the Drapery Shop! We had spoken to a couple yesterday and they had said we just had to visit it. This was confirmed by the lady in the tourist centre. This shop was funny and amazing! We suspect that they would stock anything to do with haberdashery and more. Material, wool, craft and sewing needs etc. etc. The even had replacement clips for suspender belts in their original 1960’s packs! Even Rob was intrigued by this unusual shop. From here we visited the foyer of the Roma Bungil Cultural Community Centre where we saw an impressive three dimensional clay mural created in 1988 by 2 artists. The mural reflects the history and development of Roma and the district. It was very good as you could press a button which would light certain areas on the mural and then a voice-over would tell you all about it. Back at the caravan park we headed to the Gun Club bar for happy hour with some other happy travellers.        














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