Australian Dinosaurs

The Shire of Winton is home to some of the latest and most exciting dinosaur discoveries in Australia. Just last year, on the 3rd of July 2009, the Premier of Queensland opened the new Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History on top of a 1400 hectare plateau, near Winton, in outback Queensland.

The Australian Age of Dinosaurs is the home of the world's largest collection of Australian dinosaur fossils, as well as Australia's biggest fossil preparation facility. Tours of the facility are conducted daily and visitors enjoy close inspection of all aspects of the preparation of dinosaur bones for public display. What a magnificent place it is! It's well worth a visit, and becoming more and more popular as a tourist destination.

There is a lot more to see in Winton than people may at first realise. The Waltzing Matilda Centre and the historical library are absolutely full of information and things of interest. A walk down the main street, Elderslie Street, will take you to the old Corfield and Fitzmaurice Store, which now houses an interesting range of exhibits and items for sale. You can step back in time at the old open air picture show, and across the street is my favourite store, Searls, the store that sells everything in mensware and lots more.

Chat to the locals - they will tell you so much about what to see and do in Winton and the surrounding district.

A.B. (Banjo) Paterson features widely in Winton, as it was near here that Australia's real anthem, "Waltzing Matilda", was written. It was first performed here in 1895, and went on to capture the true Aussie spirit of determination ever since. Hence the Waltzing Matilda Centre is the modern heart of Winton, linking the spirit and fortitude of the pioneers of the past with the vision and tenacity of entrepreneurs of today.

We spent the night at the Matilda Country Tourist Park ,one of the three caravan parks at Winton. It was crowded with touring vans and motor homes, but the amenities were up to it and the showers and toilets were clean and with plenty of hot water.

That night we were entertained by two visiting bush poets who put on a free show, with lots of fun and laughter, especially for the impromptu performance, with members of the audience, of Banjo Paterson's "The Man from Ironbark."

The Australian age of Dinosaurs was the dream of local graziers, David and Judy Elliott, who started to take an interest in Australian dinosaurs some years earlier and realised that western Queensland was the former home of many of them. David's dream of establishing such a facility at Winton, received financial and other support from many quarters, but the project received it's grearest boost when fellow graziers, Peter and Carol Britton, donated the picturesque plateau, the Jump-Up, on their property, for the home of the project.

Now people from all walks of life and from all parts of the globe can become involved and can contribute to the Australian Age of Dinosaurs. Members are invited to volunteer for a day (or a week) working at the museum on dinosaur fossils with the lab staff, while those who would like to experience more of the great outdoors of outback Queensland are invited to purchase a dinosaur dig position and join the team to search for more exciting dinosaur bones.

I first heard about the 'Australian Age of Dinosaurs' opening from a friend who was visiting Winton at that time, but I did not have an opportunity to tour the site until June 2010. It really is a most interesting and somewhat awe-inspiring tour, as one contemplates, not only the size of the Australian Dinosaurs that roamed this country around 95 million years ago, but also the task of the trained palaeontologists and enthusiastic volunteers who are working on this project.

You can read about our visit to the Winton district in 2010 when we went fossicking for opals where dinosaurs once roamed.

Opalton, about 120 kilometers south of Winton, is the centre opal mining in this part of the world. It has a designated fossicking area where you can try your luck to find the flash of red, green or blue that identifies the beautiful Queensland Boulder Opals that have been found here since the 1880's.

The road to Opalton, which passes through Bladensberg National Park, traverses some unusual terrain, very rugged in parts, which seems to change through a variety of soil types and colours, as well as different types of vegetation as the journey progresses.

As you near Opalton you can see some of the rough mining camps where opal miners are working their claims. Others seem to be abandoned, but maybe the miners come and go. There is a remarkable feeling of entering a frontier town and an expectation of an unusual experience.

We called in to one of the more established-looking camps and at first thought no one was there, until we noticed a grinding noise coming from a small shed slightly away from the main building. A young man was cutting into some stone. He stopped what he was doing and in the open and friendly manner of Aussies in the country, directed us to the camping ground, told us that there was no shop, or even a pub at Opalton these days. He showed us what we should look for when we were fossicking for opals and gave us a mud-map of the area to help us find our way.

Apparently Opalton was, at the height of the opal mining boom, a bustling 'outpost' boasting a shop and a Pub, but all evidence has long since gone.

We found the camping ground after taking only one wrong turning from the unsealed road that winds through the place. There were three or four caravans at the site when we arrived, plus a van that is occupied by a caretaker. The toilets and showers are clean, but there is no hot water. Several bough structures with spinifex thatching provide shade for campers, and there is a tap where you can get the water to wash your finds when you are prospecting. The facilities are minimal, but the charge of $2 per night is very reasonable.

Just a few meters from the camping ground, you can start fossicking around the piles of discarded rocks from previous diggings. As the opal is contained in rock, it is usually not visible until the rock has been cracked open, so there are some quite good finds to be had by cracking rocks that have been left behind by previous miners. Our method, as novices, was simple. We cracked rocks with a hammer and dipped the pieces into a bucket of water to reveal any gleam of the colours of opal.

After a while we started to find some small samples and by the time we left the camp site next day, I was starting to get the idea of which stones might contain opal, and which would not. To learn more about fossicking, or noodling as it's sometimes called in Australia, at Opalton, and to find out about some of the locals visit PatsOpals.

On our visit to Opalton, we slept very soundly after a very pleasant dinner and evening relaxing around the camp fire, under the starry sky.

Lark Quarry, on the way back to Winton, was the site of a dinosaur stampede some 95 million years ago. Palaeontologists theorise that a large group of small dinosaurs was grazing or drinking beside a large lake when they were charged by a large, meat eating theropod. The footprints of the stampeding dinosaurs, as they try to escape, criss-cross over the tracks of the theropod, and were preserved in the mud and filled with silt, eventually forming a sandstone record of their escape.

The Lark Quarry Dinosaur Trackways display is housed in a purpose built display centre about 110 kms southwest of Winton and guided tours explain what happened and how the tracks were preserved for all time. A very interesting glimpse of life on earth in the days of the Australian dinosaurs.

Not far from Lark Quarry is 'Carisbrooke Station', where we enjoyed a very pleasant nights rest. Carisbrook is a working sheep and cattle station about 85kms southwest of Winton, Queensland. The Phillott family welcome guests on 'Carisbrooke Station' and provide accommodation and tours of the picturesque area, where Australian birds and animals can be found in large numbers. It's a very pleasant and quiet place to stay for one day or stay for several and explore the spectacular scenery of the area.

They offer self contained accommodation, powered van or camp sites with clean facilities and plenty of hot water or bush camping beside the dam. Enjoy bushwalking, birdwatching or just relaxing in the peaceful surroundings.

Winton is not the only outback Queensland town to enjoy the fame of Dinosaur discoveries. Muttaburra was the home of one of the first discoveries of Australian dinosaur bones. The area, formerly part of a vast inland sea, is rich with fossilised history. The discovery of the fossilised bones of a previously unknown dinosaur 12m long, 2.5m high from the hip and weighing approx 15 tonnes, resulted in the creature being named Muttaburrasaurus.

At Hughenden, the Flinders Discovery Centre houses a skeletal life-size replica of the Muttaburrasaurus Langdoni and a dinosaur fossil display including local fossils, and gemstones. At Richmond the world renowned Kronosaurus Korner displays the fossilised remains of animal and plant life from the ancient inland sea that covered this part of outback Queensland in prehistoric times.

As we have been talking about the Australian Dinosaur discoveries and fossicking for opals in outback Queensland, we have not mentioned the flora and fauna, kangaroos, emus, plain turkeys and other native animals you are likely to see when you travel outback. There is plenty to see and do and much to make your outback Queensland adventure memorable and enjoyable.