A wife that fully understands and is happy for me to take time out when I need it means I am a very lucky man , I am extremely grateful .
I think one of the reasons I started to feel so low was that there were no plans , no agenda and nowhere to be , which was a first for this trip . I sometimes find it hard to just sit and be , and to just observe and take everything in that ' s in front of me . Even if that ' s just for 30 minutes , 1 hour or a day and be ok with that . Essentially just being in the present moment . That ' s something else I need to work on in 2022 . I did however manage to observe the river flowing ... and flowing ... and flowing to the point I was wondering if I would have a waterbed to sleep in for the night . My old fire pit had to be relocated to higher ground and I had prepped my tent ready for a quick retreat during the night if needed .
As I sat in town contemplating the ups and downs of the last 24 hours I happened to catch a glimpse of a building that I had walked past a few times but not thought too much of it . This was the Roxy Theatre .
Although it didn ' t appear to be a working theatre , I wondered what its past must have looked like and what was its back story and history .
The Roxy was born from 3 Greek men who migrated to Australia in the 1920 ' s to set up a number of cafés in and around the Bingara and Barraba region . The Roxy grew from a café and expanded into a major entertainment hub that at the time the local paper deemed the venture to be the " Dawn of a new era in Bingara ’ s Entertainment history ”. The Roxy was deemed the most modern establishment outside of the city of Sydney at that time .
This then ensued a cinema war within the town when other proprietors moved in . Over the coming few years , each establishment tried to outdo each other before finally in 1936 the Roxy was forced to close its doors just 5 months after extended renovations and upgrades were completed trying to compete with the competition that was in town . They had overextended in trying to compete and were forced to close the doors and file for bankruptcy .
In 2004 the Gwydir Shire Council bought and refurbished it back to its glory days before reopening . The Roxy now houses multipurpose cinemas , performing art venues and function room . It also houses a museum dedication to celebrating Greek immigration to rural Australia .
It ’ s funny how many times we walk past these buildings in towns we visit or even our own towns and never know the history behind them or never really slow down to know our own history .
A test was found , and the following day was a lot of sitting around waiting to get the results but my inability to sit still got the better of me mid-afternoon and I just had to don my riding gear and get out there .
Once I got on the bike I could have taken any number of roads or tracks but for some reason I chose to turn down Whitlow Road just
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