Winton

 Winton is another eye-opener and has grown so much since the Winton I remember.  I will always remember my first trip to Winton when Philip and I were driving back from Warwick and we arrived in Winton.  I was really thirsty and we pulled up at cafe where I asked the girl behind the counter for a glass of water.  She tried to warm me. It's hot she said.  No problem I replied.  It's a bit smelly she said.  No problem I replied.  Needless to say I didn't drink the water because as soon as I brought the glass to my mouth I got a whiff and I gagged and spilt the whole glass on the counter. I must have become a lot more accustomed to the smell and taste of bore water since those days because it hardly bothers me anymore.

Yesterday afternoon, after we had arrived and eaten lunch, we went for a walk downtown to the Waltzing Matilda Centre. You may recall that it was burnt to the ground in 2015 but by 2018 it had been re-built.  A remarkable feat.  It must have been devastating for the town as so much memorabilia had been lost but I am pleased to say that the new centre has been re-stocked with some fabulous memorabilia.  I imagine there was a big call-out to everyone in the area to donate what they could.

We spent around two hours wandering around the Waltzing Matilda Centre and could have stayed longer as it was very interesting.  While we were at the centre, that doubles as the Information Centre, we asked about the Dinosaur Stampede that is around 100km from Winton.  The very helpful lady behind the centre suggested that we first visit the Australia Age of Dinosaurs before deciding whether to tackle the dirt road to the Stampede.  Her advice was good.

The drive to the centre took us up a windy road to the "jump-up" that sits high above the landscape. I had pre-booked our full experience tours and we were at the centre by 9am for the first of our tours, Dinosaur Canyon Outpost and Outdoor Galleries, that began at 9.15.  

We are taken by shuttle bus to the Dinosaur Canyon Outpost that houses the footprints of many dinosaurs, turtles, crocodile and lungfish. Remarkably the whole footprint area was transported some 70km from where it was found to its new home in the climate controlled building. It is a magnificent display and our guide kept us engaged throughout the tour.

Once the tour was finished we were invited to walk down to the canyon at our own leisure.  It was fantastic. Here we found replicas of dinosaurs that would have inhibited the area some 95million years ago and deep in the canyon they are trying to re-establish some of the plants that would have lived here millions of years ago, for example cycads.

From this area we are transported back to the main building and then we walk along a well defined path to the fossil Preparation Laboratory were our guide explains the whole process from excavation of the fossils to chiselling away the rock encasing the fossil.  It is a time consuming and laborious task.

Fossils wrapped in casts, waiting for cleaning

Dinosaur bones from Judy and Ann.  :-)

We return to the main building for the last presentation in the Collection room.  Once we are shown to our seats an audio visual presentation commences.  In front of the screen, in a semi-circle,  are displays of fossils that have been stripped of all rock and are amazing in their detail.

This, the last tour, finished around 1pm and by this time we were very hungry.  It only took us around 20 minutes to drive back into Winton and we headed straight to Tattersalls Hotel where we both enjoyed a huge crumbed steak with salad and chips.  The salad was simply a suggestion. 

Winton has been very enjoyable and a walk around the streets shows that the community really care about their town.  There are a couple of beautifully restored houses, and some that need restoring but all in all a great little town to visit.