Outback Queensland road trip Day 15 Winton dinosaurs

 

 

By the numbers

7.75kms walking

9,671 steps

Dinosaur Triangle complete – Trifecta

 

During the night we had heard it rain and I was hoping that it would not stop us from getting into the Australian Age of Dinosaurs outside of Winton. I had read a while ago that the road was unsealed and I thought that would make everything soft and we would get stuck on our way there. The rain had mostly gone when we went to leave, but it felt a little chilly. I was wearing a long sleeve shirt so thought I would be alright. We had jumpers in the car where we had put them.

 

The drive out to the museum did seem to be really long even though it was around 20kms from Winton. To my surprise the road was sealed the entire way and the views from the actual museum were spectacular as you could see the bush from on top of the hill and into the distance. The whole complex I realised was well spaced out as you need a vehicle to get to the other parts especially the Dinosaur canyon. We had specific times where we are meant to be for the next part. We started off at the laboratory where they prepared and uncovered the pieces of the bone they had gotten in the field and a few were waiting in their jackets, which is what covers them until they are worked on. We are told we could walk or drive there. Mum and I chose to walk and it was some good bush walking and being a cold day it felt good. At least the flies were not bothersome yet.

 

The tour around the lab was a group tour and there were a few others including kids along for the ride. We got to see some of the specimens they had found including a crocodile that even had a piece of dinosaur so it was labelled as a dino killer. There were other examples of animals that were found and how much they know about them. We got to see the fossils being worked on, which was interesting as one of the ladies explained that she works for long hours while chipping away. The tour guide was actually a kiwi who is a palaeontologist and came here to do some work. They still have heaps of work to do. The next part of our tour is back at the reception area and they are going over some of the fossils they had found like Banjo, Matilda and Sue. From little bits they can tell if the animal is something new or similar to one of the other dinosaurs in the world. Depending on where the dinosaurs have died that are times when only the legs and little parts like ribs remain as they had been eaten by scavengers, which was a theory. It was incredible what they had in the room to show the people who had come along.

 

The last part was on the other side of the complex and they take you there in a regular bus service to Dinosaur canyon. Its something like a 5 min ride and we thought it was at 1130, but we had to get the bus at 1115, which we were confused about at first until we pulled out the itinerary and it was written on there. Luckily the bus hadn’t left or else we would have been stuck. We had coffee too that we were drinking along the way. What I wasn’t expecting when we were guided to Dinosaur Canyon was that there would be a guided tour of the March of the Titanosaurs where there was dinosaur tracks. Turns out this had been relocated from a farm around 50 kms away as it was on a creek and slowly eroding over time. It had been removed and put back together to be preserved from the elements. Footprints of sauropods that is long neck dinosaurs, prints from smaller dinosaurs, crocodile prints, turtle prints and even a lungfish. The other type of footprints like that is in Broome and in a tidal area. The story goes that the farmer sees palaeontologists on another property and lures one with the promise of something pretty cool. The rest is history. The next part is unguided and at our own pace is a walk along the canyon along a boardwalk. I find this to be impressive as it had views of the whole area with a scattering of dinosaurs and information about them. The crowds had dispersed by the time I had gotten to the end and the next tour group hadn’t come through yet. By the time I wandered back to the beginning they were starting to drift to the walkway. I did see that they are looking at making additions in the future to house more, although that is apparently along time away.

 

I only had a little bit of a wait before I could catch the next bus back to the main reception area and I ended up going through the gift shop and ended up with a few things that will hold my interest. By that time it was time to head back to town and see the views from the top of the hill. There were still a few cars making their way to the museum. On the way back we stopped at the Willie Mars historic fruit and vege market to see what it was about. I knew as I had been there, but mum hadn’t. We then ended up at the open air picture theatre where we had a little tour of that. It was showing the different projectors that were used through time and what they were currently using to play films. They are still playing films throughout the week. We ended up back at the room to relax and were second in line for ordering food as we knew how long the lines got the day before and slow. This was our last day in Winton before we start heading back towards the coast and home.

Outback Queensland road trip Day 14 Mystery WIFI in Winton

 

 

By the numbers

9.17kms walking

11,274 steps

1 museum

3 Mystery WIFI

 

I have found mystery WIFI in Winton, although there is several with a Telstra signal hitting Winton, but keeps dropping out so its somewhere close, but unsure the origin. There is one called Taipan that you can sign up for 2 hours for free or $4 for 24 hours and that is just as deadly as a snake. Then the one that is free, but called the Bush Telegraph or something similar that I think could be a council thing. It seems to connect automatically so could be lonely. They all happily appear in my list, but the ones with padlocks are not so friendly.

 

We had to checkout of the cabin in the caravan park and the bed was really nice and comfy except from my bed the mystery Telstra wifi is nowhere to be found. If I move to the table three steps away it picks up, but not if another device is connected. We are already packed by the time the park manager comes around and tells us to leave the key in the door when we leave, which we do. We consider where we are going to go and the answer is the Waltzing Matilda Place. It was about Banjo Patterson and his writing of Waltzing Matilda apparently while he was visiting a family in Winton. Before we went there I wanted to see the Winton sign just outside of town. I thought it best not to walk there as I know there are road trains in the area. The topic looks into the culture of the song as it spawns many versions of the song over the years for various reasons including for advertisement and is considered to be the unofficial national anthem. Also the whole culture behind the words as well with additional words that were taken out in other versions and their meaning within a multicultural society. The rest of the museum tells the history of Winton and I had read the reviews for the centre and people were upset over the local history as it doesn’t tell enough about Banjo.

 

Something no one has picked up on is that the centre was badly damaged by fire in 2015, which I didn’t realise had happened as there was a video in the theatre about the fire, so they would have lost quite a bit. I didn’t know there was a whole filming theme that went on in Winton with a few movies that had been made hence the film festival every June. One cowboy type movie was made by the singer Nick Cave. There is plenty of local history in the museum with many objects from vehicles that included an old bed that was made out of cow hide well before we had proper beds in some locations. There were several different types of iceboxes that were used to keep food fresh and many different types of electric shears for shearing sheep. I learnt that when people were in an iron lung they were in there for weeks so they were helped to breath when they had Polio. It was interesting browsing along with the many displays throughout the museum including a train carriage that was dedicated to those who served during World War 1. Once we ended up at the exit I found the reading room was mainly about the family history side of things.

 

By the time we had a bite to eat and a coffee, we headed over to our hotel in the pub and were able to get into our room. There was someone with a similar name and hope they don’t know who we are. The hotel has a lift and we got stuck part way up and had to hit the up button several times before the lift would go all the way up. We sorted everything out and I went for one of my wanders around town. I found Arno’s Wall as he was an eccentric artist who made a wall out of anything he could find from motorbikes to cash registers and sewing machines. It was interesting. I wandered to where the sunset Winton sign was and decided the one we took a pic of earlier in the day was better. I did find the Crack up Sisters, but that was not running today and I would miss the other shows as we are elsewhere. Nearby was the Willy Mar heritage site for an old Chinese vegetable and fruit market garden, where he was well known for selling produce to the locals. There was a father and son who later took Senior Willie Mar’s name so he was Junior. He ended up going out of business in 1954 I think it was due to either drought or flood.

 

I made my way back into the main street of town and had a look around. One of the hotels really was closed as it was shuttered. There were some street art works that I came across and various statues to do with Waltzing Matilda or the Swagman. I entered the  hotel we are staying at and knew that the Bush poet I had seen the day before was playing. I thought he was finished, but he wasn’t and I ended up getting a book. He signed both copies, which was nice of him. Then we faced the dreaded line to order out food and the line was long enough, but wait we did and the food ordered. I have to say the size of the meals are incredible especially when I cant pick up a plate one handed. After we had eaten, we went to try the artesian pool that was warm water from the artesian basin bought up by a bore. We had sorted out accommodation for our trip back home, so that’s at least something done as we now have the route. Tomorrow we visit the Age of the Dinosaurs that is nearby. It looks like it is on a pretty big site when looking at the map.

Outback Queensland road trip Day 13 Hughenden to Winton via Richmond

 

 

By the numbers

9.68kms walking

1 Museum

1 upset GPS

2500 kms so far on our trip

 

The day started to the voices of cherubs, just not anything to do with me and they were more hell spawn than anything else. They were awake around 7am even though they beat my alarm, I was still well rested. They did leave early as I didn’t see them when we packed the car nor when we drove out. The route we were taking was to Richmond the same road towards Mount Isa and we were not going that far at all. The strange part was that we took the road leading back to Winton, but there were local streets dividing the other main highway so we could cut through them for a purpose. There were two street arts features we wanted to see and they both were water type tanks. I got the photos taken and we drove off towards Richmond.

 

Most of the caravans were going past us and I have no idea which direction they would end up in, still we were on the road. Dirty windscreen from the mud from several days ago and the multitudes of bugs in the last day that wanted to land on the windscreen by showing off their skills. The town of Richmond would be out first stop and then we would head to Winton, which would be around 2 and half hours from there. What we were calling into Richmond for was they have a nice museum called Kronosaurus Korner that has about all the marine dinosaurs that have been found in Australia specifically in the Richmond area. There have been complete skeleton finds of several of the animals and many other sea life like fish and shelled animals. What I did not know was there were several quarry pits they you could get a permit to work in to see if you could come across something. Amateur people have made some great finds in the last few years and that is incredible. Also the museum houses the actual fossils and not casts, a few you have to keep the children restrained or else they would step on them. There is even a lab where you can watch the scientists prepare the fossils for extraction from the rock and the techniques used. They had something like 1500 specimens in their collection. I quite enjoyed myself and for having this as a rest stop. I could have spent longer there with the audio tour, but I knew that time was limited so we had to move on eventually or until the milk went off in the portable fridge. We asked about the road to Winton as I was hoping it wasn’t wet and got told the only bit that was unsealed was the last 10kms, but if that made us uneasy then we could go back through Hughenden.

 

We plugged Winton into the GPS and it wanted to send us back the way we had come through Hughenden. I knew better and directed the car in the other direction and the GPS kept wanting us to turn back, so mum had to eventually turn her off as she had stopped talking to us. We were after the Richmond Winton road and that was another way to get to our destination. I had used my phone to find that road, but weirdly the GPS hadn’t found that road or used it as an alternative route. Along the road we were passed by a few people in caravans going in the other direction and pigs with piglets running off into the grass. Though I thought it interesting we had tumbleweed or Spinifex going across the road at one point. The last 10kms we ended up with unsealed road, although there was a new part of road being built as well that might be sealed when finished. It didn’t actually take too long to get into Winton as we started looking for the hotel we would be staying at. The town was a little busy, but we managed to park where we are going to stay.

 

Off into the hotel we would be staying knowing that we would be there for two nights and be off by Monday. We talk to the receptionist and there is a hitch in our plans and that is we are in there tomorrow, not tonight. I look at the dinosaur booking and that is Monday. I think we actually had an extra night in Hughenden, but I cant remember or find that email apart from welcome on yesterdays date. The lady asks us if we have one bed or two beds in the room and mum points out that its two beds as he is my son. I say out loud how embarrassing! Though she does ring around to two places. The first one doesn’t answer and the second one does and it’s a cabin in the caravan park on the outside of town. We take that. We keep our other two days especially when we have a dinosaur museum on Monday and not Sunday. We end up with an extra day in Winton. We were really lucky as the film festival is on in town so luck is on our side. We drive to the caravan park and I realise this place is what we passed yesterday on our way to Hughenden. Pretty funny. We get settled in and I decide to go wandering as mum relaxes.

 

On the maps I bring up and able to connect to Telstra wifi from somewhere, I was able to find a singing fence nearby, so I made that as my next destination. The singing fence was also the site of the first Qantas landing in Winton in the 1920s. I was happy to find that. I couldn’t workout the fence, but there were drums. Then I moved on and was going to look for some more town entry signs, but I wasn’t walking the side of the highway with road trains going past, but instead found a park dedicated to those who opened up bores in the town for drinking supplies, also they needed special ponds to cool the water as it came out at 85 degrees. The water came from the artesian basin deed underground. The next location was the cemetery as I wanted to get there before the sun went down. It wasn’t too bad of a walk and very little traffic on the road. I found the cemetery and had a look around. By this time it was well after 5pm and I wanted to return before dark. On the way I found the old Winton train station, although trains no longer come into town and the station isn’t used anymore unless it is and its actually Linfox that do. There was another reason I wanted to get back as there was a Bush Poet at the caravan park that night. I had ended up walking around the outside of town and back to where I was staying in the caravan park. The CBD area is for tomorrow.

 

We went to the roadhouse across the road for dinner as we didn’t need to drive anywhere since it was close. The food there wasn’t too bad and I left happy. The bush poet was something I don’t usually go see and he put on different accents with hats when doing Clancy of the Overflow. He seem to be staying in the park as a guess and performing for free there, but other places he would be charging. Did say bush poetry was a dying art so that could be true. Once that was over, we went back into the room and then made a plan for getting home. We think we have a route planned and will look at the rest when we have stable access to the inter webs.