The Dinosaur Trail

 

We stayed at a caravan park in Hughenden and began our three-part adventure through the Dinosaur Trail. First, we went to the Flinders Discovery Centre. This Centre houses a full skeletal replica of a Muttaburrasaurus as well as the Porcupine Gorge Light and Sound Show, Shearing the Stragglers display and other fossil and gem collections with some historical memorabilia and much more.

 

Richmond is situated on the Overlander's Way halfway between Townsville and Mt Isa the town is located on the banks of  Queensland's longest river, the Flinders, and is known for its marine fossils, recreational Lake Fred Tritton and bougainvillea lined streets, parks and gardens. Here, we visited the second part to Australia’s Dinosaur Trail, Kronosaurus Korner.

 

 

 

The friendly, picturesque town of Winton, has strong links to Waltzing Matilda, Qantas, and dinosaurs. It is probably best known as the place where ‘Banjo’ Paterson wrote Australia’s unofficial national anthem “Waltzing Matilda” in 1895. Just as significantly, the first board meeting of Qantas was held at the Winton Club in 1921, marking Winton as the Birthplace of Qantas. However, long before indigenous Australians and the white settlers walked in Winton, the dinosaurs called this land home.

 

 

 

 

The final part of the Dinosaur trail is a visit to Lark Quarry Dinosaur Trackways. This site is the world's only recorded evidence of a dinosaur stampede. The Trackways are the inspiration behind stampede scene in Steven Spielberg's movie "Jurassic Park". Unfortunately we didn't have time to drive the 220km return trip to the site. We only stayed in Winton overnight and to be honest, we were a bit dinosuared out! We decided that a visit to the Waltzing Matilda Centre would be more enjoyable.

Just before we left, we went to the famous Winton Musical Fence. It is a wire fence that can be played as a musical instrument and it is the first permanent musical fence installation in the world. There we all pretended we were rock stars in our own Junk Yard Band!

We camped behind the beautiful North Gregory Hotel where Waltzing Matilda was first performed in 1895. Behind the hotel was an amazing sculpture called Arno's Wall. Arno's wall is a strange mixture of art and architecture, which is made up of a mixture of junk cemented into the brick wall. Some of the many junk items were rusted lawnmower parts, boat propellers, vintage typewriters and sewing machines and even a couple of complete motorbikes!

 

 

  

The morning of Dan's birthday, we drove to Walkabout Creek in the hope of having lunch at the Walkabout Creek Pub from the movie Crocodile Dundee. Unfortunately the pub was closed!! So we got take away from the roadhouse and ate it on the front veranda of the pub!

 

 

We stopped at a road side rest area that night and celebrated Dan's birthday with a cake, candles and some help from fellow travellers to sing Happy Birthday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We called in to Mt Isa to stock up the caravan. We were really surprised at the size of the township. It is like a small city which has almost every shop and business you can imagine. As we got out of the car we realised that the town smells industrial. The mines are very close to the town centre and you can hear, feel and smell them.

 

We continued through to a little town called Camooweal. Here we met up with our good friends, Julie and Rasmus and their three kids. We camped next to a billabong and spent nearly two weeks doing absolutely nothing!

 

Julie and Rasmus are on a 12 month trip around Australia and they began their journey with us in Victoria in February.

It was really hot while we were there and we were camped without power or water so the kids spent time playing in the billabong and Dan strung up my hammock between two trees and I spent hours reading my book, while Dan worked. Then as the caravan heated up to over 45 degrees, it was Dan's turn to relax in the hammocks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Julie and Rasmus are now heading in the opposite direction towards the east coast. The next time we see them, they will have finished their journey and will be back home.