Those sun-etched folk who call the great Australian outback their home are by nature a wonderfully unpretentious lot and perhaps this is also the defining uniqueness of outback towns. They are not big and showy, just proudly purposeful in their existence and the Queensland town of Roma is one such example.
Poised on the edge of the outback, the small rural town of Roma can justifiably claim a rich pioneering history. Perhaps it's more notable contribution to the history archives was being the site of Australia's first oil and gas discovery, an industry that today still continues to underpin the local economy. But it was not oil and gas that steered the Bazflyers into Roma, this town also has the largest cattle sale centre in the Southern Hemisphere.
Cattle sales are held twice a week and on any sale day over 8,000 head of cattle will be auctioned. Almost as impressive as the sales yards is the associated transport infrastructure. Cattle from near and far are carted to and from the centre mainly in giant multi-trailer trucks known as ‘road trains’. The atmosphere of a Roma cattle sale with its dust, noise and controlled mayhem has, in recent times, become a significant local visitor attraction. During our morning at the sale-yards store cattle consistently fetched record high prices without any visible reaction from the vendor….thereby reinforcing the unpretentious character of true outback folk.
A typical cattle road train
Cattle lot awaiting their turn with an auctioneer
Working the yards
Another type of big rig. This is the original rig responsible for Roma's oil and gas discovery
The streets of Roma are lined with Bottle Trees
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