Thursday, 10 October 2024
This morning, we completed our showers with orange towels! On this trip our towels have alternated between white and grey so the towel offering here at the Outback Motel is very cheerful for first thing in the morning. Love it!
Another early start today to make sure that we were out at Lark Quarry Conservation Park for our 9.30am tour of the Dinosaur Stampede National Monument. The site is 110km south-west of Winton so, knowing that the road is not sealed all the way, we allowed extra time and departed at 7.30am. The road out was OK, even the unsealed bits. We assumed it would be sealed to a certain point and then unsealed the rest of the way.
However, the road is sealed for about 40Ks and then made up of alternating sealed and unsealed sections with the sealed sections denoted as overtaking zones. You don’t get an extra lane to overtake, just a better road surface. Even the gravel sections were in good repair. The only section that slowed us down was where they were doing roadwork with the speed limit reduced to 60kph.
On the drive out we saw quite a few head of cattle in the long paddock. We have passed so may yellow signs warning that there are no fences, watch for cattle … and there hasn’t been any cattle. Today there were some scrappy, barely visible/legible signs warning of cattle and they were everywhere. None ON the road though so we didn’t have to stop for any to amble out of our path but certainly plenty visible from the road.
We also encountered flocks of white birds on the roadside, corellas we think? Before today it’s only been ravens and kites on the road feeding on roadkill. We have no idea what had attracted the corellas to the road. The only other life on the road was a couple of kangaroos that we had to almost stop for before they decided to hop away.
Lark Quarry is located atop another of the Winton areas Jump-Ups so eventually the road climbed up from the plain onto the escarpment characterised by its mesas and gullies. Such a contrast between the flat areas and these higher parts of the landscape. We arrived at the quarry about 8.50am so well in time for our tour.
We used the facilities and then made our way into the centre to flash our VIP Passes. At 9.30am our guide, Luke, took us into the theatre and talked us through and showed us short clips that explained the discovery, excavation and preservation of the Dinosaur Stampede before taking us inside to view the trackway.
The trackway is unique in the world as the only known fossil that preserves a stampede of dinosaurs. Through some remarkable scientific detective work, paleontologists have identified 3,300 dinosaur footprints of dinosaurs that lived in Outback Queensland 95 million years ago. Luke told us that the evidence here at Winton was inspiration for the stampede scene in Jurassic Park.
From studying the tracks, paleontologists believe that what we are seeing is the result of a herd of approximately 300 coelurosaurs (carnivorous, chicken-sized dinosaurs) and ornithopods (a slightly larger plant eater) gathered beside a lake taking panicked flight when a much larger meat-eating theropod arrived on the scene. Luke highlighted the footprints for us and described how paleontologists believe the action unfolded. Then, through a series of fortuitous geological events the footprints were preserved for millennia before being discovered by grazier, Glen Seymour in the 60s. An amazing insight into the past.
After our tour we completed the short, 700 metre Spinifex Circuit Walk. From the back of the centre, we walked to the Lookout with amazing views of Seymour’s Quarry to the south. To the north-east we were looking over the plains covered with Mitchell grass and to the north-west we were looking over channel country towards the Diamantina River. We continued the circuit over a well-built track surrounded by sandstone and ironstone rocks. All the wildlife was staying out of the hot sun, and we did not see a single wallaroo or echidna … or even a lizard! The prevailing eucalypts were Normanton box eucalypts one of the few eucalypts able to survive in these dry and infertile soils.
And then it was 110km back to Winton in time for lunch at the bakery. Tcht, it was only 12.30pm so we were optimistic about having more options to choose from today. We walked in and there was a huge set of refrigerated shelves set up with labels for an appetising variety of sandwiches. But the ONLY sandwiches to choose from at 12.30pm was two lonely egg and lettuce sandwiches. What? Where did all the sandwiches go by only 12.30pm? So, we decided to look in the pie warmer, where my first choice – chunky steak – was also sold out already. Maybe we need to start having lunch before we have breakfast to get some choice, ha, ha.
After lunch we wandered along the street to the Waltzing Matilda Centre. This is WMC 2.0 with the original museum dedicated to Banjo Patterson’s much-loved song, that was built in 1998, destroyed by fire in June 2015. Fortunately, the centre has been rebuilt and re-opened in April 2018. This year marks the 129th anniversary of the song and to celebrate this milestone the museum has been able to exhibit items they acquired from a private collector that go a small way towards replacing the many artefacts that were lost in the fire. The centre is the first of two museums worldwide dedicated to a song. The second is the ‘Silent Night’ museum in Austria.
Patterson penned the ballad of Waltzing Matilda in 1895 whilst staying at Dagworth Station near the township of Winton. He wrote the words to fit music that he had heard Christina Macpherson play on the zither and drew inspiration from local people and places.
The Waltzing Matilda Centre is co-located with the Sarah Riley Theatre and the Qatilda Museum that houses a wide variety of historic treasures, so we ventured from the centre out into the museum … despite the warning about snakes. What? We were way out of town this morning where I was paranoid about the possibility of snakes and wore long pants and shoes to be safe and there were no snake warnings and no snakes. Now, we’re back in town and I had changed into a skirt and sandals AND there’s snake warning. Aaargh! Happily, I can report that no snakes were seen all day.
After finishing up in the Outback Regional Art Gallery at WMC – currently featuring pieces from the National Portrait Gallery’s 2023 National Photographic Portrait Prize – Bernie and I drove out to have a quick look at the Winton Truck Museum. Damn, it’s closed for renovations this week! Luckily, we had not driven far from the town centre, and we were able to refuel the car at the Winton Roadhouse while we were on that side of Winton.
Just before sunset we drove over to the Winton Way Out West sign for sunset only to find that it was not well aligned for the sunset at this time of the year. After a couple of shots there we decided to drive to the Longreach side of town to photograph the WINTON sign with the sun setting behind it. A quick loop back around to the bi-plane silhouette that we photographed last night, and we dropped the cars back at the motel.
Tonight, we walked over to Tattersall’s Hotel for our dinner. Although Google rates the Winton Hotel more highly we preferred the venue and the food tonight over last night. Can’t trust everything you see on Google, eh?
