Slow start this morning as we couldn’t step away from our breathtakingly peaceful camp site. Finally dragged ourselves away round 9 and headed into St George to refuel with diesel and coffee and some groceries.

We had a shorter drive today continuing up the great inland way to Roma- very excited knowing the fam were  heading west from Brisbane to join us for a couple of days. 

First stop was for a quick peek at the Beardmore dam (named after a local MP). Water levels weee low- surprisingly its maximum depth only gets to 2.5m.

From there we headed to Surat  for lunch in the Timber Crate where David said he had the best burger he’d ever eaten (possibly an artefact of the very healthy meals I have been serving up to him over the last couple of days).

Landscape was dry as a chip

We arrived in Roma at about 2.30, just in time to set up camp before the others arrived, and spent the rest of the afternoon exploring all things ‘big’- Roma hosts the the biggest bottle tree, the biggest rig, and the biggest windmill  all of which we paid appropriate reverence..

We were also lucky enough to be here for the outdoor sculpture exhibition, which had the most incredible metal sculptures by artists as young as 14 years. They were displayed spectacularly along the river bank with the backdrop of massive gums that were glowing in the sunset.

Finished the day with the ‘biggest’ pub meal and off to get our beauty sleep so we can get up bright and early for the cattle sales