Day 6 – Sunday July 25 2021 – 238km

Up at dawn before most of the other campers, breakfast and packed for the drive to the Australian Age of Dinosaurs museum about 15km outside Winton.  The museum is located on what is called around here a “jump-up” because the hill just seems to jump up out of the surrounding plains. The landscape is featureless for hundreds of kilometres, then this rock outcrop.  The first tour is at 9.45 on the electric shuttle across to the interpretation centre that has a dinosaur footprint collection around 50 metres long that was transported here piece by piece and reconstructed. It is inside a large air-conditioned building and now protected from the elements. The guide was very knowledgeable and pointed out lots of large and small footprints which to us was a jumble of holes in the rock until he pointed them out.  Outside is the sculptures of two large sauropods and more breathtaking scenery.

Our next tour is of the laboratory where dinosaur bones are being removed from their protective layers. Again, the guide Sarah was very knowledgeable.  We can become volunteers here to assist the recovery process. It is very painstaking and laborious with lots of repetition using small air tools.   

Back to the main building and into the main display room with our next guide Makita. Here is displayed the real bones of three different dinosaurs, a velociraptor and two different species of sauropod, all discovered locally within the region and the first of their species discovered.

This museum is world class and well worth a visit. We had a quick meal at the visitor centre before heading back into Winton and off to Hughenden, around 220 km of driving a rural backroad. Again endless plains with occasional scrub & trees. Lots of dead kangaroos and wallabies with feasting kites and eagles around them. We also saw lots of flocks of budgerigars, some very large flocks of around 1,000 birds and some small with only 20 or so. There was not much traffic on this road, mainly caravans and the odd road train.

We reached Hughenden around 4.30pm & booked into the caravan park, set up then off to the washing machine to wash our clothes. Tereza cooked a tasty omelet.  We thoroughly enjoyed our shower after 2 nights of bush camping.  Beautiful full moon looming over the horizon. 25 degrees and another great day.