Every Picture Tells a Story

moon rocks @ Richmond

Richmond

Well, we've been to Richmond in Victoria and to Richmond in Tassie, been near Richmond in SA and now we're in Richmond, Queensland.
About half way between Townsville and Mt.Isa and situated on the edge of Queenslands, longest river, the Flinders, lies this peaceful little town, now the dinosaur capital of Australia. A couple of nice and quiet days here as we take another good look around the town. The main employer here would have to be the Shire. The rumbling of road trains comes and goes as often as the trains are heard coming and going although the road trains are more frequent. Not sure how many double decks of cattle on three trailers and the trucks seemed to follow constantly the other day. Yesterday, the Victorian Variety bash came into town. About 85 cars and about 320 people  had the town booked out.Dinner at the local hall last night and brekky at the Primary school this morning. We went up to wave them off and they all looked as if they were having a ball. Finishes in 2 days on Hamilton Island for another year.
Outside temp about 34C here today and this is about average. Makes the afternoon very lazy. Moon rocks abound here as well. Photos to come of those. They were formed in the ocean, similarly to forming of a snowball and once again unique to this area.

Every Picture Tell a Story

Winton, Hughenden and on to Richmond

The return journey from Winton to Hughenden again, was uneventful. Some 220 klms of undulating but mostly flat territory with the odd scattering of kangaroo road kill and not a lot of anything else. I must say though, that the Flinders Poppy, a nice pink flower, grows prolifically around Hughenden and is only found in this area. A refuel at Hughenden, a lunch stop at the nearby Lions driver reviver area and we were on our way to Richmond. More undulating, more flat, more uneventful.........

At Richmonds Kronosaurus Korner, our three place ticket admission got us into their dinosaur display as well. Well, when you think that you may have seen it all, another new chapter begins. Kron was a huge marine reptile that breathed air and was a terror in the sea. Their teeth were 30cm long and two thirds of that was embedded in their jaws, so the rest were used for biting, holding and ripping. Kron was bigger than  T-Rex and thats saying something. But wait theres more. Pliosaurs were also found in this area. Two brothers Ievers, found the beak of one while rounding up cattle, in a river bank.One bro kicked what he thought was a stick, which actually broke the snout off and upon further examination, they could see there were teeth in this piece of jaw. This has turned out to be the most complete skeleton of this type of dinosaur in the world. Since then about three others have been found in the area in various states of disrepair.The KK interpretive centre is also the tourist info and so we asked about directions to the local fossicking site. About 12 klms out of town, an open area on both sides of the road, well sign posted to indicate fossil digging area 1 and 2. After about 1/2 hour we returned to town with a piece of rock that I had split open with my trusty Geology pick and revealed what looked like a piece of petrified wood. back to KK for an opinion, and that disproved the wood theory in fact it was a fish bone, probably from the skull area of a fish that hasn't seen daylight in 110-115million years. A great day out. Plesiorsaurs and Ichthyosaurs were also in the area and it doesn't stop there. Research is well under way to find others in the area. The concept is a little difficult. Most of this area was a huge inland sea covered by about 40-50 metres of water, this eventually drained into the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Great Australian Bight revealing the dry seabed and great artesian water basin we now have.

Every Picture Tells A Story

Waltzing our matildas at Winton

The trip from Hughenden to Winton was not the most exciting trip that we have ever done, none the less we made it even though we lost three glasses in transit. The road was ROUGH and the rough patches, rises in the road followed immediately by a dip in the road, come up without notice.

Anyway, settled in at the Pelican caravan park and lo and behold another Scenic Vega Captains Deck about two doors up. Unfortunately the owners were not around that we could see and left early this morning so never did catch up with them.

Spent the rest of the day at the Waltzing Matilda centre, Corfield and Fitzmaurice centre and out for tea to Tattersalls hotel. WM centre was great, a huge display of the history of the song and its origins that were here at Winton. The CF centre, once a large drapery store, is now a craft shop, and dinosaur centre. Samples of fossils from the area and beyond and a scale model of the Muttaburrasaurus that we had met earlier. The three attractions pass also let us into the Open Air theatre that is well known in Winton. Unfortunately for us it's on a Wednesday night..Missed by THAT much..

Today started earlier than usual, we were out of here by 8.00am to refuel take our lunch and water to the lark Quarry about 110klms south of here. 50% gravel and 50% bitumen, but a good gravel road just the same. The quarry is the site of the worlds only dinosaur stampede. This is quite amazing to think that these things, big and small, roamed the area. When you hear the story, it's no wonder there aren't more places like this. Australia must have been crawling with them. Footprints recording the stampede show different sizes of dinosaurs running here and there from the big one on two feet that would have been about 5mtrs tll and similar to T-Rex but not quite as tall. These could run at about 30klm/hr so would outrun this little black duck, let me tell you..The spinifex walk around the centre afterwards was great also. Upon our return, one of the guys showed me a phot of a small death adder that he had just taken on the same walk, about 2 feet off the path..YIKES.. Lunch on the return to town at a Jump Up parking bay.Off to Age of Dinosaurs about 20 klms out of town, 1ok bitumen 10klms gravel.Another fascinating place. These people have really got their acts together. This place lets you touch the ACTUAL dinosaur bones that they have dug up, restored from stone and placed there on exhibition. Entertaining tour guides made it all the better. The exhibits (mostly) show the actual bones/remains from the diggings instead of being locked away in some museum collection somewhere distant from where they were found. These black soil plains are covered in thousands more dinosaurs as well. This centre has found about a dozen NEW dinosaurs in the last fifteen years. These have never been recorded anywhere else in the world before. Thats a BIGGY..