The Weyman-Jones Family
The Overlander Homestead Motel Roma Queensland History
Located in
Roma Queensland The Overlander Homestead Motel Roma Queensland was built by Loloma Robertson in 1984... Loloma was the mother of Amanda Weyman-Jones who is the current owner.
The Overlander was the first modern motel to be built in Western Queensland and was quite a revelation with the Restaurant providing á la carte dining.
Amanda managed the Restaurant for the first 8 years and is where she first met Charles when he was working for Dalgety Australia.
The Restaurant was known far and wide in the early years with Amanda' huge personality with regular theme nights for local patrons on the weekends prior the mobile phones and cameras! It would be impossible to do those now.
The theme nights have been re-introduced as an additional weekend menu with a different country theme each week. The menus are posted on Facebook weekly.
Music is a big part of Amanda's life and the original Pianola was brought back to the restaurant when Charles and Amanda returned to Roma in 2012.
In the early years Amanda used to also play the guitar and sing which has been a tradition of their six children when they return to The Overlander on the odd occasion.
Slim Dusty used to stay at the Motel for up to two weeks at a time, when he was seeing his local muso connections.
Today there are other musicians who stay at the Motel who also just play and sing for fun for the guests.
Amanda's father, David Robertson, highly decorated WWII Flying Ace, businessman and grazier spent many years renovating and building at The Overlander.
On one occasion, when laying paving around the motel, had Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen (Queensland Premiere) helping him for two days while swapping stories of the bush and the WWII exploits.
The Restaurant is famous for a dinner meeting in 1987 between Sir Joh Bjelke-Peterson, (Queensland Premier) and Bill Gunn (Deputy Premiere) that provided the plan forward with the Fitzgerald Inquiry.
Amanda and Charles purchased the lease of the Motel from Glen Clark in 2012 and have subsequently bought the motel freehold in 2018.
The Overlander is the only 4.5 Star officially rated motel in Roma and with extensive renovations managed by Charles and Amanda after the 2012 flood where 100cm of water flooded the motel and since purchasing the freehold title.
Charles and Amanda believe in Family Motel Management, which is why all staff were retained during Covid 19, as it is families that make a community and community is more important than profit.
In 2020 Amanda went to Moscow, Russia where she had Stem Cell Replacement Therapy for her MS Multiple Sclerosis, which she has had for 20 years.
She returned to Australia in March 2020, a week before Covid 19 was rampant throughout the world.
Her MS has been killed from her body and she now takes no treatments or drugs at all.
Although this does not grow your muscles back, Amanda is now working full time in the restaurant, her walking has improved incredibly and she is back to her cheeky best.
If anyone would like to find out more about this treatment she is happy for anyone to come and talk about it.