TOD Tour 2.0 Day 6 - Roma

Lightning Ridge to Roma: 446 kms (trip 956 kms)

Only a short hop to make today to Roma: an overnight stay to stock up on food and fuel prior to going off grid tomorrow. We were there in little over an hour and headed to one of the few attractions we hadn’t seen in two previous visits.

St Paul’s Anglican Church is in its second building, it’s foundation stone laid in 1913. The first building dated back to 1876. It is a high roofed, typically Church of England design, with the building in the shape of the cross and the sanctuary in the headstock of the design. It has two outstanding features: one is the 567 pipe organ which is located at the back of the church and the other are the 39 stained glass and 11 lead light glass window.

The organ is a rarity. Originally installed in 1927 at the front of the church - as is convention - it was moved to the back for reasons which are obscure but it seems feasible that it was to keep it safe from the plastering of the columns that were installed at a later date. Unfortunately it is rarely played as there is no one with the requisite skills. The parish is also currently without a minister.


The windows are exquisite. The oldest dates back to the establishment of the original church and these days it has been retired from active service and is back lit in a cabinet near the front of the church. There are many traditional figures depicted in the holy scenes but a series of windows high in the walls which are all lead lights, were designed by the vicars wife in the 1970s. Their  colours are vibrant and the morning sun streams through them, casting the pews into a rainbow of colours.

Volunteers take visitors through the church and explain the history. We had the added bonus of a bus load of oldies arriving and one of them asking if he could play the organ. Two of his mates - a bass and baritone - joined him on Amazing Grace and I threw my tenor in on the subsequent verses. The place had a beautiful tone.

After booking in at our digs and deciding our movements over subsequent days, we found a coffee shop - naturally - then wandered among the bottle trees that were planted to commemorate the soldiers from Roma who enlisted in WWI. Each life was assigned a tree, so that they would never be forgotten: one of the most poignant memorials a community has provided anywhere in Australia.

Click for today's photos

We did the Woolworths thing and on our way back to our digs, went to the parkland to the east of the city to view Roma’s biggest bottle tree. It has a trunk that is 6 metres high and 9.1 meters in girth.

Slow day.

Good!