Boom boom acka-lacka lacka boom- Everybody walk the dinosaur

The Australian Dinosaur Trail - Part 1- Winton, QLD

Friday 10th and Saturday 11th June

Australian Age of Dinosaurs Natural History Museum, Winton

After a cold evening at a free camp just outside of Winton, we awoke filled with anticipation for our upcoming tour at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs, the Natural History Museum just out of Winton. The morning was icy cold so we rugged up for our early tour of Dinosaur Canyon. We began with the 'March of the Titanosaurs' exhibition, which shows tracks from a range of different dinosaurs, including large sauropods. We were all impressed with the prints, and were equally impressed with the story of how they got to the museum. Incredibly the footprints (that were made in mud that has, over millions of years, hardened into rock) were transferred in small sections from the property they were found on, up to the museum (in a ute!) It took 3 years to put it all back together - that is serious dedication. After that we got to wander through Dinosaur Canyon, were there are life size replicas of the dinosaurs known to inhabit the area 100 million years ago. 

Then it was off to the Fossil Preparation Room where we got to see dinosaur fossils up close - we even got to touch a few fossilised dinosaur bones. We learnt about the process for removing the rock from fossils - a long and tedious job using a small air drill- and met some of the volunteers working on various fossils. One lady explained what she was doing to Jackson, and showed him the fossil she was working on. He was enthralled and has now added palaeontologist to his list of possible jobs for the future. We later found out that just with the dig sites they currently know about, and the bones that have already been recovered and need to be prepared and restored, there is at least 30 years of work just in this area of Australia. They certainly inspired Jackson so he might be one more person to help them with their work in 10 years time!

Our final treat of the day was viewing the holotype-fossils (this means the real fossils- apparently many you see in museums are replicas and the real fossils are kept for studying) of several dinosaurs found in the local area, including 'Matilda'- Australia's most complete sauropod fossil. It was incredible to hear how all these bones have been stumbled upon by local cattle station owners, just going about their day!

We all thoroughly enjoyed the interesting and informative 4 hours we spent there, and were already looking forward to the next day - the Dinosaur Stampede at Lark Quarry.

Sunset at Long Waterhole free camp near Winton

A replica of the 'Australovenator wintonensis'. The most complete fossil bones of this type of theropod were found nearby and are housed inside this museum

The tracks of herds of sauropods, theropods, ornithopods, as well as ancient crocodiles, turtles and lungfish that roamed this part of Queensland when it was a temperate rainforest (and was located near northern Tasmania)

The kids thought these theropods were cute- apparently there were heaps of these carnivorous creatures around and they were likened to 'angry chickens'.

Replicas of the sauropod long necked dinosaurs that made the big prints we saw. Lot sof fossils from these dinosaurs have been found in the Winton area.

Wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley - this is a replica of what a stampede would look like.

Kunbarrasaurus - crocodile like armoured dinosaurs. The fossilised skeleton they found of this creature was so well preserved, they could even tell what it's last meal was!

The huge front foot that made many of the prints we'd just seen.

In the fossil preparation area - we were even allowed to touch the fossils!

Butch - a new species of pterosaur found at a station near Winton. So many important scientific discoveries being made throughout Winton, and just by regular people!

The large array of fossilised dinosaur bones we got to see up close in the Collection Room.

We found a great spot on the way to Lark Quarry, where we enjoyed the solitude and remoteness.

Jackson found a friendly gecko

We were literally in the middle of nowhere!

Pretty nice spot to camp for the night.

The kids and I experimented with some firelight photography (while Daniel very kindly did the dishes).

Practising the moody teenage look- hopefully there'll be a few years before this becomes a reality!

The kids used the wide open space to fly their planes. The wind helped and they had the planes doing tricks!

Dinosaur Stampede National Monument at Lark Quarry Conservation Park

It was incredible to see the thousands of footprints from at least 150 smaller dinosaurs as they tried to escape a much larger predatory dinosaur. These footprints show the only know dinosaur stampede in the world, all housed in a small building in a remote area of Queensland. Again we were in awe viewing evidence of an event that occurred over 95 million years ago. 

The story of how these footprints were found was also entertaining - a local fossicker found a rock with a dinosaur print and was showing his find to everyone at a caravan park, when he happened to show it to a lady from the Queensland Museum, who was obviously intrigued. He told her that his mate had also found some prints in the ground that she might like.....and the stampede was discovered!

Funny to think that a discovery of such importance, and the only evidence of a dinosaur stampede in the world, only occurred through luck and good timing.

The photos don't do it justice. I think the feeling you get looking at footprints and imagining the event added to the experience (and I can't capture that with my camera).

The Dinosaur Trail includes 2 other museums, but we needed some time to digest all we'd seen and learnt over the past 2 days so we decided to camp in the bush for a few days.