Today was a long day on the road with the route from Lightning Ridge to Roma covering 423km and taking us across the Queensland border through Hebel, Dirranbandi, St George and Surat.

We'd seen many reports by travellers who'd passed through Dirranbandi about its exceptional bakery and so of course we had to check that out for morning tea. The decorative Russian tea urns or samovars placed on several tables gives a hint to some of the types of cakes offered. We chose a burnt caramelized apple turnover with fresh cream and pecan tart, and agree this is a "must stop" location.

The bakery is also known as the Green Frog Cafe. The relevance of this being that the town site was surveyed in 1885 and named Dirranbandi, after an Aboriginal word.  Several slightly different meanings have been identified to this aboriginal word, the most popular and readily recognised is “Frogs croaking in a swamp at night”. 

Nearby the bakery is a bronze statue of Tom Dancey, a local Aboriginal stockman and boundary rider who at the age of 22 years won the Stawell Gift in 1910. By winning, he earned his trainers £1000 and it is not known if any found its way to Tom. 

Tom died in 1957 and was buried in an unmarked grave, however the unveiling of this statue and the placement of a headstone on his grave in 2011 provided some recognition.

The Beersheba Memorial commemorates all who fought in the Great War 1914 - 1918 and their horses that could not come home. 

The charge by the 4th & 12th Light Horse Regiment of 800 horseman was led by Brigadier-General William Grant (1870 - 1939) who purchased the property Corack (Waldor) at Dirranbandi after the war and remained here until his death. 

Both the Tom Dancey and Beersheba sculptures are located in Railway Park which is where several restored railway buildings stand. We went into the the 1913 Station Master's residence which is now the Rural Transaction and Visitor Information Centre.

Lunch was a sandwich in the van at St George where we parked beside the Balonne River, which unlike most rivers we've seen on this trip, had plenty of water flowing, albeit very brown in colour. 

So just before 4pm we arrived at our home for the next two nights, the Villa Holiday Park in Roma. Dinner was meatballs and vegetables in a spicy tomato and olive sauce cooked in the Weber.