Day 31 Monday 17th July

After doing some shopping before we left, we had fairly uneventful trip from Longreach to Winton. We arrived well before lunch. We had heard that it was very busy at Winton and many of the parks were full. The first place we tried, was booked out so we were lucky to squeeze into another caravan park, taking the last spot they had. We booked in for 2 nights as we knew that one of the places we wanted to visit was on a gravel road and 120kms from Winton so we wouldn’t be taking the van. We wanted to visit the “Australian Age of Dinosaurs”, about 28kms out of town. We headed out after lunch and started our tours at 2pm. The reception centre, display and lab area are set in a stunning landscape (called the Jump-up Site). Our first tour was of the fossil preparation laboratory where staff and volunteers were working on real 95 million-year-old dinosaur bone fossils. I was so surprised at the huge number of dinosaur fossils found in this area over the last 20 years. We were shown how the fossils are stored in plaster castings until they can be worked on. After this we went into the fossil collection room and theatre where we watched two very informative videos of how the centre started and some the first, large dinosaur fossils found in the area. We were shown fossils from 3 different dinosaurs and then shown how scientists work out how the dinosaur moved and its appearance. From here we hopped onto a bus and we were taken to the Dinosaur Canyon. Our guide took us through an amazing canyon with life-size displays of dinosaurs and outdoor galleries showing how the fossils were formed. This whole thing was a very special experience and we would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who has the slightest interest in dinosaurs. 
PS  An echidna decided to walk in front of the bus, as they do!! (see last 2 photos)



























Comments

  1. pferorsJuly 18, 2017 at 7:21 AM

    do they carbon date the fossils there?. didn't take a photo of the local west lakes fossil robbicus gottabigadicus.
    looks impressive.

    ReplyDelete
  2. pferorsJuly 18, 2017 at 7:48 AM

    do they carbon date the fossils there?. didn't take a photo of the local west lakes fossil robbicus gottabigadicus.
    looks impressive.

    ReplyDelete

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