Quaint but booming, Roma is a historic town sitting amid rich agricultural country and atop mineral resources in Outback Queensland.
Roma lies on the crossroads of the Warrego and Carnarvon Highways. Its airport has regular flights to Brisbane, 500km to the east.
Roma was founded in 1862 and named after Contessa Diamantina di Roma, wife of then Queensland governor Sir George Bowen. Shortly after, a vineyard was established and until it closed in 2012, the Romavilla Winery was the oldest in Queensland.
A drive through Roma will reveal the town’s amazing wealth of heritage buildings. The town has the stories to back it up, too. One of these concerns Harry Redford (also known as Readford), who stole 1,000 cattle, drove them nearly 1,000km to Cooper Creek in South Australia and sold them for £5,000. Redford was arrested, but when his case came to court in Roma, the jury found him not guilty despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The only explanation given for this was that the jurors admired Redford’s bushcraft so much that they couldn’t bring themselves to convict him.
Despite Redford’s efforts, Roma is still making big bucks from cows. Its cattle saleyards are the biggest in the southern hemisphere. While Roma is big on agriculture, it also benefits from nearby gas fields.
