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..