4th September – Friday
Woke to a cloudy morning for our big excursion to Lark Quarry, site of the only known dinosaur stampede in the world. We decided to take the caravan park’s organised bus tour, which worked out about the same price as taking our own car. The fact that the 110 km road is only sealed for about 50 kms certainly helped with the decision!
We set out in an old Toyota 12 seater bus that was nearly more dust than bus, and with only four passengers, we had plenty of room. The driver informed us that the best way to travel over corrugations was at speed, because we wouldn’t feel them. He was wrong!!! The countryside changed very quickly from grass plains to mulga and spinifex bush with plenty of kangaroos – plus we saw another four emus. The land was still very flat but with what the locals call “jump ups” and everyone else calls mesas. Beautiful red colours in the earth.
The dinosaur stampede at Lark Quarry is truly mind blowing! The first footprint was discovered in the 1960s and they weren’t really excavated until the 1990s. A large building has now been erected over the site to preserve the area. It is so hard to imagine that these footprints were made over a period of only about two minutes and 95 million years ago. It is so amazing. Three types of dinosaurs were involved – over 130 dinosaurs of two different types of small dinosaurs (one about the size of a large chook, the other about 80 cms tall) were feeding on the mud flat beside a waterhole when a large carnivorous dinosaur attacked and the small ones scatted in all directions. The footprints of the large dinosaur are very clear and it is even possible to tell when he started to run. Over 33,000 footprints have been individually cast and numbered for studying. It is unbelievable that all these footprints have remained intact under layers of silt which turned to rock, and these layers of rocks have been removed to show the footprints exactly as they happened. Just incredible!
This stampede was the inspiration for the dinosaur stampede in “Jurassic Park.”
This afternoon we explored a bit more of Winton and found Arno’s Wall. This is a large wall surrounding a house and it is made of concrete and junk – the wall contains a large variety of things like fuel stoves, sinks, microwaves, motor bikes, machinery and general junk. The gates are decorated with wheel caps and frying pans. Not sure if I would like it around my house, though.
Then it was past the Winton Club, birthplace of Qantas. Evidently, Qantas was conceived in Cloncurry, given birth to in Winton and grew up in Longreach. We then discovered the Musical Fence on the outskirts of town – a couple of wire fences have been constructed to make musical notes when struck, along with a number of other pieces of junk put together to make musical instruments. Someone got rather carried away on the drum set!
Woke to a cloudy morning for our big excursion to Lark Quarry, site of the only known dinosaur stampede in the world. We decided to take the caravan park’s organised bus tour, which worked out about the same price as taking our own car. The fact that the 110 km road is only sealed for about 50 kms certainly helped with the decision!
We set out in an old Toyota 12 seater bus that was nearly more dust than bus, and with only four passengers, we had plenty of room. The driver informed us that the best way to travel over corrugations was at speed, because we wouldn’t feel them. He was wrong!!! The countryside changed very quickly from grass plains to mulga and spinifex bush with plenty of kangaroos – plus we saw another four emus. The land was still very flat but with what the locals call “jump ups” and everyone else calls mesas. Beautiful red colours in the earth.
The dinosaur stampede at Lark Quarry is truly mind blowing! The first footprint was discovered in the 1960s and they weren’t really excavated until the 1990s. A large building has now been erected over the site to preserve the area. It is so hard to imagine that these footprints were made over a period of only about two minutes and 95 million years ago. It is so amazing. Three types of dinosaurs were involved – over 130 dinosaurs of two different types of small dinosaurs (one about the size of a large chook, the other about 80 cms tall) were feeding on the mud flat beside a waterhole when a large carnivorous dinosaur attacked and the small ones scatted in all directions. The footprints of the large dinosaur are very clear and it is even possible to tell when he started to run. Over 33,000 footprints have been individually cast and numbered for studying. It is unbelievable that all these footprints have remained intact under layers of silt which turned to rock, and these layers of rocks have been removed to show the footprints exactly as they happened. Just incredible!
This stampede was the inspiration for the dinosaur stampede in “Jurassic Park.”
This afternoon we explored a bit more of Winton and found Arno’s Wall. This is a large wall surrounding a house and it is made of concrete and junk – the wall contains a large variety of things like fuel stoves, sinks, microwaves, motor bikes, machinery and general junk. The gates are decorated with wheel caps and frying pans. Not sure if I would like it around my house, though.
Then it was past the Winton Club, birthplace of Qantas. Evidently, Qantas was conceived in Cloncurry, given birth to in Winton and grew up in Longreach. We then discovered the Musical Fence on the outskirts of town – a couple of wire fences have been constructed to make musical notes when struck, along with a number of other pieces of junk put together to make musical instruments. Someone got rather carried away on the drum set!
No comments:
Post a Comment