It was only a short day today. 45 kms to Hughenden. The scenery changed to grassland – Flinders grassland and short bushes. There were a few cattle but then we saw the solar farms. Huge tracts of land with solar panels, some still being built. We passed Mt Walker, a mesa, something breaking up the flatness. They hold a 4km run up Mt Walker every year. Hughenden was much smaller than we expected. There were very few people around and hard to believe we couldn’t get accommodation here the night before. We stopped at the Flinders Discovery Centre, perhaps the only new building in town. Here we saw the huge Muttabuttasaurus outside and inside a wonderful collection of fossils.
It was 212 km from Hughenden to Winton on the Kennedy Development Road. Because we had turned off the main highway, there was no traffic at all. We passed only a couple of cars the whole time. This land was very very flat. There was grassland and some stunted shrubs, but not much else. Soon this just became the grass, the guide book calls it Mitchell grass here, but it all looks the same to us. 80 km before Winton was Corfield, a town with a population of 10. There was an old pub and a couple of houses. In August the population really swells as everyone comes to the Corfield Cup. As we had been driving, we noticed double fencing and what is obviously a stock route. Reasonably frequently there were water soaks or sometimes small dams, mostly dry at present, for the travelling cattle.
We arrived at Winton at lunchtime and there were quite a lot of people around. We checked into our accommodation – outback satisfactory and then went back to the new Waltzing Matilda Centre. This was only opened a couple of months ago after the earlier one was destroyed by fire. It is very state of the art, with headsets and lots of electronics. It is all about Waltzing Matilda relying on the fact that Banjo Patterson wrote it here. Apart from the presentation inside on this, outside were displays of early Australiana – things we have seen a lot of elsewhere. There was an excellent art exhibition in their gallery – perhaps 24 paintings by very well known Australians.
Saturday our plans were to go to the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum. We did but before that, we caught up with Wayne, whom we met at Injune almost 5 weeks ago. He has been riding a pushbike from the Gold Coast to the Red Centre and has reached Winton. We had just noticed a post on his Facebook saying he was in Winton for a few of days. So were we. In a roundabout way we made contact, met him at his hotel and agreed to meet up for dinner. Then off the 24kms to the museum. This was a fantastic 3 hour tour. It is very modern, only 1 year old, situated on top of a mesa. Firstly they took us to the labs to see volunteers working away cleaning the dinosaur fossils, explaining how they got them and how they preserved them. Then there was a presentation with real bones and a video showing how the bones related to the dinosaurs – Banjo (carnivore), Matilda and Wade (both herbivores). Matilda they believe was 16m long! The use of technology enabled them to make the dinosaurs come to life. Next we got in a small electric train and were taken to the edge and down the side of the mesa. Here they had created bronze replicas of dinosaurs. This was a very professional place and we enjoyed it.
We met up with Wayne at 5.30 at his hotel, the North Gregory Hotel. A hotel now in its 4th incarnation, twice having been burnt down. In the courtyard, a fellow called Gregory North, was telling the story of Banjo Paterson and reciting some poetry. We then went inside for a very enjoyable dinner. As we were leaving we got chatting to a mother and daughter, having dinner. They were locals and we enjoyed hearing about the area and the town from them.
Sunday we had arranged with Wayne to pick him up and head out to Lark Quarry to see the Dinosaur Stampede footprints. This was a 110km trip out from town. The brochures and locals said it would take 2 hours as the road was mostly dirt. We set off, not passing another car, watched a kangaroo jump across the road in front of us and took about 1 hour 20 as mostly the road was sealed, often single lane, and any dirt was ‘good’ dirt. We decided to boil the billy and have the lamingtons that Wayne had brought along while we waited for the tour. So appropriate in this very Aussie outback setting which we saw yesterday, has been the site of quite a few movies and you can see why. There were eroded mesas, spinifex, stark colours and the building housing the footprints. We joined the tour and were shown the genuine 3300 footprints that they have excavated, of dinosaurs fleeing. There were 3 types of dinosaurs – the small coelurosaurus – chicken size, they estimate 86 of them. Then small ornithopods, the size of an emu, they estimate 70 of them, and then one large theropod (Tyrannosaurus), as big as a Clydesdale horse (although his footprint was huge). He supposedly came upon the others and saw dinner. There ensued this stampede. The footprints are there in the mud stone. Our guide explained how they could tell that the dinosaurs were running rather than walking by the fact that the toes had the deep imprint. If they had been walking around the heel would have taken the weight. Fascinating. They have constructed a temperature controlled building over this site, to protect the footprints and rock from the severe temperature extremes. We had our sandwiches here looking out over a wonderful outback landscape. On our trip back to town we had 3 emus run across in front of us.
Back in Winton we checked out the Musical Fence. This has been made by using different wires in the fence and putting on top 2 rustic frets. There was a bucket with pieces of iron, rubber, pipe you could use to make your music. Then there were the other instruments – a drum kit made with various metal containers (drums), saucepan lids (cymbals) and other bits and pieces. A rotary clothes line had metallic instruments dangling from it. A fun place for the 3 of us to pretend we were kids. Noone else was around.
Next stop was Arno’s Wall. Arno built the 90m wall down the side of his house embedding all sorts of junk in it. There were all sorts of things – a bike, lawn mower ……
We agreed to meet up with Wayne later for dinner. So at 5.30 we returned to the North Gregory Hotel, first assembling in the dining room as Gregory North had the room all singing Waltzing Matilda as he played the pianola. Then we all went out to the courtyard and he did a variation of what he had done the night before. He does this every night. Tonight he told the story of Banjo Patterson but with more poetry, starting with his birth and A Bush Christening. He told us all about Banjo but it is interesting that his only connection with Winton is that he visited a property out from Winton where he had dinner and listened to one of the women playing a Scottish tune. He asked about words, she didn’t know if there were any and he suggested trying out the words he had written for Waltzing Matilda. So it came about. He left the area but Winton has clung to this piece of history to create something much bigger. It was back to the dining room for dinner and another very enjoyable night with Wayne. We said goodbye as we were both leaving the next day, we for Longreach and he on his pushbike for Boulia, then Mt Isa and eventually Alice Springs. An amazing feat, a great guy.
Jottings & Blottings 