Winton afar

We’ve been to Winton many times but never travelled this far to get there.

Whoops! different Winton and not car race track to be seen. Horses though. And dinosaurs. And dust, and flies and heat – well that bit is like the Winton we’re familiar with.

110 km out of town on a mostly bad dirt road is Larks Quarry. Someone somehow determined that this was the site of a dinosaur stampede about 60 or 70 million years ago and dug up the footprints to prove it. Apparently some of these footprints just fell out of the dirt a few years ago so some intrepid explorers dug deeper and here we are….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now the little ones are the size of the feet of the big black chook  in the last post on Longreach but nonetheless we are persuaded to the view that these are not chook prints but DINOSAUR prints and the big pints are those of a BIG dinosaur chasing down the little ones for a feed, oh! about 60 million years ago and the prints got covered over by a flash flood depositing silt and subsequently ironstone deposits which in turn got further covered over then in more recent millennia it all got eroded away and some of the prints fell out. I just want to know who was out here looking –  this is the most inhospitable country you can find…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

but suddenly you come upon the building housing this rather unique display and it all seems to be worthwhile…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and on the way in you pass an airport on which is parked 5 bloody planes.

Well there’s more dinosaurs when you get out to the south side of town to the “Age of Dinosaurs” – one mans (David Elliot) dream to display the remnants of a prehistoric age. It is nothing short of breathtaking, the manner in which a collection of old bones and artefacts of a long ago era are displayed, described and restored…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The guy with the hat is David Elliot who found the first bones on his own property and has subsequently uncovered many more around the area. This is a shot of him after a quick change following a lunch in the facility with the Queensland Governor before he  headed out on another dig. Full credit to the guy – the facility and information is nothing short of marvellous. The people sitting around with big magnifying glasses are generally volunteers who scrape the dirt and rocks off the bones that are found, many taking days and weeks to clean up. Its painstaking. The racks with white bundles on them are stocks of old bones retrieved and protected after other digs.

We were told that many bones and relics find there way to the surface because of the constant churning of the areas ‘black soil’, a factor which also has some bearing on the constantly poor state of the roads in this part of the state.

The building was designed on a pro-bono basis by a firm of Sydney (I think) architects – Cox something I vaguely recall. It is stunning.

Winton also has other relics, perhaps not quite as old but more in keeping with the Winton we are more familiar with…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some are fully restored and all within the shed are working examples but as you move further out the back the restoration prospects diminish. Its a truck graveyard and I love it. Trouble is, so do the snakes –  I was told ‘don’t worry’ they’re all asleep at this time of year but I gotta tell you I wasn’t about to wake them up by climbing through some of these wrecks. Maybe with a shotgun in hand I would have been more adventurous.

Wintons Matilda Centre is another example of a town making a name for itself on a single simple theme. Apparently ‘Banjo’ Patterson penned the words to the song “Waltzing Matilda” whilst in town one day and Winton adopted it. The centre is devoted to it. When I was here in 2003 the centre featured a holographic presentation of the story outlined in the song, but apparently this proved too expensive to maintain so now it is a light and sound show – still good to see once but not as good as I recall. When through here last time I spent a long time exploring this centre but it didn’t seem to hold the same charm today as it did 11 years ago. Still well worth a look though…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can’t help myself –  more bloody cars and trucks even in the Matilda Centre. Mind you its a bit hard to get a photo of a song but I did try.

Several pubs in town all of which have burnt down at some time and have been rebuilt but we tried ‘The North Gregory’ version three which seemed to have retained a bit of character…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and if you look closely you might spot both of them in the foyer (Jude facing, Robyn walking away).

Altogether a very interesting and enlightening time in Winton culminating with a delightful meeting over a cuppa with some old friends of Robyns, Joan and Peter Evert..

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks folks that’s it for now!