Winton and Hughenden - dinosaurs and fossils

Somehow on all our outback trips we seem to visit Winton. It's a small outback town in mid-west Queensland and every time we visit it seems to us to be the quintessential Aussie outback town. It is also home to the absolutely amazing "Age of Australian Dinosaurs" museum.

Peter loves spending a couple of days in their Lab scraping away the rock and earth which encases the bones of these pre-historic animals, and the whole set-up now is much more than a museum and if anyone is interested I urge you to have a look at their webpage - www.australianageofdinosaurs.com.

Winton itself claims to be the home of the Australian song "Waltzing Matilda" as the words were written by Australian poet, Banjo Paterson, when visiting Winton in 1895. There was a quite wonderful museum dedicated to this song in Winton which sadly burnt down several years ago. It is now being re-built to a new, big and very swish design and hopefully will replace the old as many artifacts were able to be rescued from the fire. The locals have mixed feelings about the new design and some feel it will be a bit 'citified' for this laid-back, outback country town. Time will tell.

Locals are friendly and always up for a chat.

One is the elderly owner of Searles - a store that sells a wide variety of goods. Bernie Searle has worked in the store founded by his father in 1946 for 65 years. One eye-catching feature is a display of old Australian hats - mostly the traditional Akrubra - that certainly all had been much loved and worn for many years. Bernie noticed my interest and was happy to yarn about his big trip to Sydney and his invitation to attend the book launch of a beautiful 'coffee-table' book devoted to the Akrubra hat. Bernie and his store even featured in the book being long-time retailers of these hats. He didn't think much of Sydney, he said, too noisy and too many people and he was glad to get back to Winton after his city outing.

The town, as well as dinosaurs, also has digs for boulder opal and of course there are stores where you can buy opal either in the 'rough' or polished and mounted in beautiful designs. In one shop I heard a Canadian accent and got to chatting with another overseas visitor - they were from Saskatchewan and so we had a lovely talk about our trip there and Rouleau, the town we visited, where "Corner Gas" (Canadian television comedy) was filmed.

Winton has a Musical Fence! (You read that correctly!). It was designed by percussionist and composer Graeme Leak in 2003 and is a wire fence that can be played as a musical instrument and it is the first permanent musical fence installation in the world. Nearby is a 'drum kit' made of all sorts of metal rubbish - but it is surprisingly good to bang about on it.

We enjoyed our stay in Winton but then we always do! Moving on our next stop was Hughenden, for a few days - again this outback town is in 'dinosaur and fossil' country and it has an extremely good and well presented museum relating the history of the district both ancient and modern.

The friendly staff there were all dog lovers and urged us to bring Charley in too and they gave him a lovely welcome. We're quite sure all the admiration he attracts will quite go to his head.

We went fossil hunting just outside the town and after a short time to our surprise, Peter found one - a Belemnite and only about 65 million years old.  Absolutely thrilled with our find and so, on our way back we called in to see the Porcupine Gorge - quite a spectacular 'gash' in the surface of the earth and a very fine sight.

Next we continued travelling east with the next stop - Charters Towers.

Winton - and dinosaurs

And so to Winton. This place in outback Queensland is noted for two things  - firstly it is where one of our most famous bush poets, AB (Banjo) Paterson composed the words to our national song “Waltzing Matilda” and set it to an old Scottish air, and secondly – and more recently – it is most likely the dinosaur capital of Australia. Only about 30 years ago fossils and ancient bones were found on a station property and the owners were sufficiently intrigued to call in the experts from a Queensland university. Subsequent digs found masses of dinosaur bones and most dated about 90 million years ago. David Elliot the property owner donated the area, and the Australian Age of Dinosaurs was founded. It is growing in stages but at the moment consists of an excellent reception area/book and souvenir shop and a display with audio visual ‘theatre’ for visitors. Also offered is a tour of the Lab where lab technicians painstakingly chip away at plaster enclosed lumps of rock to expose the bones inside.

Peter at work in the lab

 We visited two years ago and Peter volunteered for two days to work in the lab and so again he fronted up for another couple of days. The original owner of the property has taken on the job of overseeing the whole wonderful project (leaving the running of his large property to his two sons), and is the most lovely man. Down to earth, he sits and chats to everyone, including me when I was sitting in the ‘crib room’ just knitting! He recently was awarded an ‘Order of Australia medal – and for his work and support of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs it was justly deserved.

We parked our van in Winton just across from the Tattersalls Hotel (the “Tatts”) and travelled each day to the AAD centre on a Jump-Up (high clifftop) south of the town. In the evening pub meals were excellent and it was good to sit outside and chat to other travellers.

On our last day we drove about 200 kms to Lark Quarry where there is evidence of a hoard of dinosaur footprints which had been imbedded in soft mud, then covered in ironstone which preserved them for us to see 98 million years later. It is quite astonishing to where a large dinosaur came upon many smaller ones, and to see how the footprints scattered. The experts suggest that that panic episode only took 3-4 minutes, but that moment in time and its story is revealed to us eons later.

The shelter built over the footprints - beautifully designed. Impressed with the whole complex.

The imprints of dinosaur footprints 98 million years old.

The area is undercover in an excellent custom built shelter and there are guided tours/talks three times each day. We took a picnic lunch and sat outside in a shaded shelter when all the visitors had left and enjoyed the desert like scenery with views of saltbush and spinifex and little native birds hanging around for crumbs. The guide came and sat with us while waiting his next group of people and a very personable and interesting young man he was, too. He considers it one of the best attractions in Australia - up there with Uluru (Ayers Rock) and the Great Barrier Reef. It's hard not to agree with him.

Footprint of the huge meat-eating dinosaur which caused the panicked rush of smaller dinosaurs.

The small dinosaur footprint (in positive) caused by ironstone. It's impossible not to touch it.

This short period of our holiday learning about dinosaurs has been fascinating for us. The almost incomprehensible time span of 98 million years brings home to me that a human lifespan is a mere speck in time but we are so fortunate to be able to visit this area which is revealing so much of life millions of years ago.

Longreach and Winton

We arrived in Longreach after another long drive through out Outback countryside as we had been told the Stockman's Hall of Fame was not to be missed. There is also the Q.A.N.T.A.S. Founders Museum which appealed to us, not to forget the early history of the town with its Cobb & Co coach network spreading from here across the land in the early days of settlement.

We liked the idea of a coach ride to give us a taste of the old days, so we booked 'An Outback Show and Coachride' (with a gallop through the bush!) to begin our stay in Longreach. An old fashioned 'Dad & Dave' kind of presentation with input from clever horses, a lovely cheeky red heeler dog and chooks (chickens - to non-Australians!) was most enjoyable, before we were all loaded onto a coach pulled by four horses for our ride out from town to the bushy area nearby. Loved the ride although I doubt I'd have liked travelling very far a century or more ago. Roads were unmade and bumpy and with horses needing to be changed every ten miles it would have been an extremely uncomfortable and slow journey, although I supposed I've been very spoilt by modern transport. A Devonshire tea refreshed us and the afternoon finished with a viewing in a bush cinema of an old 1950s Australian movie "Smiley gets a Gun".

We had been looking forward to the Q.A.N.T.A.S. Founders Museum and were not disappointed when we visited. It is beautifully built and with much early history on the founding and growth of the Qantas airways and together with multi-media displays there was much to look at. A guided tour and talk about the planes on display here - an early Avro, a Catalina, the first 707 and finally a 747 was given by a very knowledgeable guide. Did you know that the big jet engines are attached to the plane by only 3 bolts?? I had looked forward to experiencing First Class for the first time on the 747, but sadly that part of the plane had been re-figured for more economy seats. I had to settle for Business Class and so I still have an unfulfilled dream!

On our final day in Longreach we visited the iconic Stockman's Hall of Fame. A beautiful building containing several levels each giving a different display on early Australian life and especially the outback people who persevered in those early settlement days on remote cattle stations.

The Hall of Fame featured a very talented leather worker, films and (another) Outback Show. Again there were multi-media displays and a area devoted to the Royal Flying Doctor Service was especially interesting.

Heading north again we came to Winton but just before we got there, we noticed a turn-off to the left directing us to The Age of Dinosaurs centre. Well, of course, we couldn't go past that and so turn in and drove about 10 kilometres before we had to unhitch the caravan and drive up a very steep hill (called a 'Jump Up') to the recently built complex. These dinosaur bones had been noticed for quite a few years by a local property owner, David Elliot, and eventually he sent photos to the University of Queensland who naturally were extremely interested. The result is the world's largest collection of Australian dinosaur fossils and a most  innovative natural history museum in which to house them. A massive amount of fossils have been extracted, encased in plaster and lined up on shelves in the laboratory awaiting attention. As this part of the country is extremely hot during much of the year, excavation work is only carried out for a short period in winter months. The bones are then worked on in the laboratory throughout the year. I would guess there would be about 100 years of work waiting! Volunteers to help are warmly welcomed and have a training session beforehand.

Peter decided that this would be a great experience and signed up for two day's work, so whilst I stayed with the caravan in Winton Peter went off to work each morning - just like the old days (although no pay this time!). He loved the work and learnt much about dinosaur fossils. I used the spare time to edit the family history journal which I do quarterly, interspersed with walks around town and talks with locals.

Winton, too, featured in the early days of Qantas, and it was also on a station near here that Banjo Paterson wrote the words to an old (supposedly, Scottish) ballad with the result that "Waltzing Matilda" is known far and wide and loved by more Australians than our anthem "Advance Australia Fair". Winton has a very good  museum devoted mainly to Waltzing Matilda, but again featuring local history as well.

After three really interesting days, it was time to pack up again and continue our trip and wonder what other unexpected experiences we'll have.