We packed up from Camp Wonderful and headed into Winton and out on the Longreach road to Australian Age of Dinosaurs Natural History Museum.
This is the reception centre, museum and cafe which opened about 3 years ago – since our last visit to the area. It is on top of a jump up and gives spectacular views over the area.
All of this has evolved from 1990’s when sheep farmer David Elliott found a large dinosaur bone on his property. The sauropod was named Elliott and it was worldwide news because very few dinosaur had been discovered in Australia. They have gone on to find two other unique dinosaurs, Banjo – a replica above and Matilda. Banjo is a hunter. They have also matched Banjo’s footprints at Lake Quarry stampede. We found out that Lark Quarry centre is closed because one of the walls is unstable and could fall in.
They plan to build a large museum further along the jump up and it should be completed by 2020.
This is one of the only places in the world where you can actively participate in digs and specimen cleaning. It is very open to the public and volunteers are welcomed. All closet palaeontologists are encouraged.
Above right – lots of bones still encased in rock waiting to be released.
Some of the large vertebrate.
Trained volunteers extracting bones from rocks. Some return every year to work on the specimens.
Banyo had replaceable teeth like a crocodile, so if one was broken another came through to replace it. In fact in the jaw they found you can see a new tooth a junior among the seniors.
In two steps he could reach a speed of 30 kms an hour. You could not out run this predator. Mr Nasty.
Luckily he lived 95 million years ago well before humans.
From the laboratory walk look out – you can see the museum in the distance. Above a close up. I wish I had a house like that in that location.
There was a lovely cool breeze up on the jump up. The land wasn’t part of David Elliott's’ property and was donated by a neighbour.
Entry was a very reasonable $30 for two tours – one of the Laboratory and one of the collection.
Here is Margaret our tour guide next to a replica size of Banjo’s leg. With legs like that he would win gold at the Olympics.
We drove back into Winton (we had to drive east to the museum) because our journey is north to Hughenden. We bought some dinosaur tails for Avani and Macy. The post office asked me to declare that there were no dangerous goods in the parcel – a whack from a dinosaur tail could be lethal :) All kids love having a “tail”. We headed north to Hughenden and arrived there around 5.30pm. We had a bit of trouble finding a garage, but half the problem was we came into the town from the back way. After refuelling we continued north to Porcupine Gorge which is a further 79+ kms.
The good news is that the road is bitumen all the way to the park – which made our journey really quick and easy. It has taken us 17 years to return. We had intended to come here all those years ago and there was a very heavy downpour overnight which made the then dirt road impassable.
We arrived in the last light at 6.15pm and I can tell you we were fully set up by 6.38pm ! As soon as we have the canvas up, the lights were on, it’s just a matter of taking a few things off the bed and bingo!.
We were standing outside having a cool drink and Glen could hear something hopping around – oh no large mice! - only kidding – I think these are bettongs. Really cute. We put water out for them and had to refill the dish three times - they sure were thirsty little critters.
Checked on the information board and they are “Rufus Bettongs”
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