Campers Road Trips

[Camper]

The next morning I went out to the Australian Age of Dinosaurs, kinda like a museum mixed with a sober theme park.

It was a great experience, really worthwhile, 20mins out of town and $55.00 for a half days worth of tours.



Locals and Ubiquitous road works




The Museum is on a "Jump Up" and you can see for miles, Winton in the distance















I love this shot, I nearly fell off the cliff trying to get a 360 shot here




Here you can get a feel for just how big those A pillars are







Main entrance, the buildings are made of gigantic sandstone slabs
The statue is made of bronze.

[Camper]

Inside there is a souvenir shop and some actual fossilised bones to look at, turns out a farmer found the first ones while herding sheep, now they have thousands and 40 odd years of work in front of them to catalog them all.





Old mate gives a little talk about them



There are a couple of videos then its back outside for a short walk to the lab.



The Main building is at the centre of a horse shoe like jump up and there are some great views to be had





If you squint you might see the main building in the pic above

and zoomed in below



There are some fossils in the lab part that you can touch, very cool

then walk back to the main building for a bus ride over to "Dinosaur Canyon"

[Camper]

Dinosaur Canyon, a guided walk past some life size bronze statues







It's all really well done and had only just opened in April, I feel this is going to become one of those must see spots







Pterodactyl's apparently only ever got to 12cm tall





Interspersed with some iconic Aussie scenery






These guys reminded me of a Wombat





There is another spot nearby that has the foot prints of a Dinosaur stampede, they have tried to recreate the scene, I think the artist has done very well to make it feel lifelike and give a sense of movement




















As always the big ones chase the little ones


As I say it's all really well done, they give you a little souvenir book and you can do rubbings of each dinosaur that kinda look like fossils












We waited here for the bus, a nice cool spot to sit, cold water and toilets available





Check out the trees, the trunks are so gnarled they twist back on themselves





That was pretty much it for the Dinosaurs, I raced back into town for the Matinee Movie - 4 Aussie Movies a day for $40

[Robbo]

Great photo's once again, another place I must visit too.

[Camper]

Great photo's once again, another place I must visit too.

Thanks Mate,

I feel very lucky to be able to go on these trips, God knows I have spent a lot of time on my couch broke and bored. Probably more to come so I want to make the most of it while it lasts.

[Camper]

There were a couple of Celebrities there, I saw Margaret Pomeranz and Roy Billings.

The Today show was there the day after I left

https://www.9now.com.au/today/2017/c...0v0hp8qi01evkb

https://www.9now.com.au/today/2017/c...0n0hqwq8keuy5x

https://twitter.com/TheTodayShow/sta...65947739766785

[Camper]

Next morning I toured the sights of Winton;

the Musical Fence, made by Aussie Musician Gotye (somebody that I used to know), its a wire fence connected to resonators in the roof of the shelter that makes musical notes when struck.



In the background you can see a Drum kit made of old tanks with hubcaps for symbols and a bunch of other "instruments" to bang on. Some of them sound pretty good.



The local footy field, only green grass in town





Then I went for a drive out towards Boulia to check what the road is like for a possible future trip to Mount Isa and Lawn Hill



Looks good, should have no problems


The sunset that night was unreal, ultra clear air out there




the light really set off this bougainvillea





This is the road out of town heading west, talk about driving off into the sunset!





Next morning I headed back east towards Longreach

[Camper]

Hey all,

life got in the way there for a bit.

when I last posted I was on my way home from Winton, I had wanted to stay the night in Longreach and take a cruise, but I left it too late, could not get on a cruise and kept driving.

I stayed the night near Jericho beside a Billabong I have spoken about before, Redbank Park, really is a nice spot.






Got some great shots as the sun set




I really like this one, you can see the last of the sun as well as the moon, both reflected in the water







Next morning I woke up to the sunrise reflected in the other end of the waterhole

















Here you can just see the obligatory rope swing on the left, with a bird on the branch above and to the right, I sat and watched him fish for a bit. Eventually he had a friend show up.









They reminded me a bit of Spy Vs Spy from Mad Magazine









All right, suns up and it's time to go....





I generally wait til 8am to drive to lower the chances of a Roo strike but I did have 2 close calls this morning.

[Camper]

Loooong straight roads

















Stopped in at the same lookout on the Drummond range, met a guy who was heading back the way I had come, except he is doing it all off road, would take the whole day to do what had taken me 40mins, gave me a new appreciation for the road workers and civil engineers who make my style of adventure possible.






And back in Blackwater, this group of Roo's lives across the road from me and are getting pretty tame now, I can walk to within 5m without too much stress, it's been wonderful watching them grow. But I worry we will have an incident soon enough when someone else go's to pat one.

[Beachy]

Some great photos there outback Australia at Its finest