Winton

Winton

Even though Winton was a small town it had a lot to do.
Following is alist of things we did.

Lark Quarry-- Footprints of a dinosaur Stampedee
It was amazing to see the fossilised Dinosaur footprints. It made it more real that there were Dinosaurs around 95 million years ago in Australia.

Dinosaur Footprints

On the right hand side of the
picture is about 4 footprints
from the large dinosaur.

Lark Quarry
Building that protects the dinosaur footprints

"Lark Quarry, in outback Australia, is currently the only recorded dinosaur stampede on earth. In this place, around 95 million years ago, a large herd of small two legged dinosaurs gathered on the banks of a forest lake to drink.
The herd was stalked by a large Theropod – four tonnes of sharp-clawed, meat-eating dinosaur. The herd panicked, stampeding across the muddy flats to escape the Theropod’s hungry jaws.
A record of those few terrifying minutes is cast in more than 3300 fossilised footprints. The footprints tell us about a cooler, wetter world, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and the mammal’s time is yet to come.

The Trackways were discovered in 1962 by Glen Seymour. They were later excavated in the 1970s, and a shelter was put up to protect them in the 1980s. A new conservation building was built in 2002 to preserve the Trackways."

Corfield and Fitzmaurice Museum--- Had the Diorama of the stampede.

These are the dinosaurs that made the
footprints in the stampede.

Bins throughout Winton are Dinosaur
feet.

Age of Dinosaurs-- Fossil preperation centre

This tour was very interesting because we were shown how the bones are found, stored and then cleaned and put back together. It is the largest Fossil preperation centre in Australia.
They dig for dinosaur bones for only three weeks of the year because that gives them many years work cleaning and studying them.

Some bones that they have found.

Fossil preperation centre
Working on the bones.

Musical Fence-- Winton is home to world's first permanent musical fence installation in the world. Accompanied by a junkyard band, the Musical Fence is free and available for everyone to use

Careena having a go

Luke on the drum kit.

Alanna having a go

Waltzing Matilda Centre-- Only Centre dedicated to a song. The song was first peformed at Winton.

Banjo Paterson
with the words to Waltzing Matilda

Kids being jumbucks

Arno's Wall -- Made from junk he found at the tip.
                         The wall has everything in it from typewrites, sewing machines, motorbikes to the kitchen sink.

Royal Open air Theatre-- Originally established in 1918, the historic Royal Theatre offers a rare opportunity to enjoy the movies the old-fashioned way – laid back in canvas seats under the stars. The Open Air Theatre is now also home to the World’s Largest Deck Chair.

The largest deckchair in the world.

We were more impressed with Winton than Mt Isa.

After Winton we made our way to Hughenden, another town that specialises in Dinosaur Fossils. We went to the visitor information centre and had a look through their museum.

Luke being a dinosaur

Muttaburrasaurus

Fossils

The fossil at the back looking like a cupcake
is a dinosaur egg.
Some at the front are eggs too.

Fossilised crab

After looking through the museum we continued on to Porcupine Gorge National Park where we camped for the night. When we arrived it was late in the afternoon but the kids wanted to walk down to the river for a swim. The water was cold but they enjoyed sliding down the moss covered rocks into the water. By the time we walked back up to our caravan it was getting dark.
The following pictures are of the gorge.

Todd showing off

this is known as the pyramid

Mataranka to Mt Isa

Mataranka.

We spent the night at Mataranka Homestead. Todd and the kids swam in the thermal pools.

We went for a walk past the pools to the end of the boardwalk. At the end it looked over the Waterhouse River and a freshwater crocodile was lying in the water where the warm water flowed from the thermal pools into the river. We thought he might have been trying to warm up.

After Mataranka we made our way to Winton stopping at Renner Springs and Mt Isa on the way.

We didn't do any of the mine tours at Mt Isa because they weren't on the days that we were there. We weren't bothered because we had done mine tours previously. We did go out to Lake Moondarra which is the water supply for the city. As you will see by the pictures it was very pretty.

Looks Cool

Bad Hair Day

Love my hair

Outside the caravan park we stayed in were 3 semi trailers with Monsters trucks on the back of them. Luke was very excited. There was Taz the Devil, Batman, Scooby Doo and a couple of others. They were putting on a show on the Saturday.The kids wanted to see it but we were moving on, on Thursday.

Kakadu to Atherton Tablelands

Wednesday the 22nd of June
Hi everyone, we are at the Atherton Tablelands in Queensland and have been out of service for a quite a while. Now that we have full service  I will be able to catch up with the blog.

Kakadu

In Litchfield and Kakadu National Park  there were a lot of bushfires. These fires are deliberately lit shortly after the wet season. It is called cool burning. The fires burn the grasses and not the trees. The fires help repair the country and to encourage biodiversity to recover.

The Aboriginals have been burning for tens of thousands of years and non Aboriginal people are now starting to realise the value of this age-old Aboriginal knowledge.

Some of the roads were still closed because they had the wettest season on record.

On the way into the park we stopped at Aurora Kakadu Resort to buy our park passes and have lunch. We continued on and stopped at Mamukala Bird Hide. It was a short walk from the car park along a raised boardwalk over the wetlands.  When we reached the hide we could see lots of birdlife. Alanna was looking over the edge of the handrail when her hat fell in the water. None of us were going in to get it because we were in croc country.

Wetlands from Mamukala Bird Hide

Wetlands from Mamukala Bird Hide

Wetlands from Mamukala Bird Hide

Our next stop was Ubirr –famous for its Aboriginal rock art. Along the road to Ubirr we had to cross two flood ways. Todd enjoyed driving through the water.  When we got to the car park the kids started to complain because it was hot and they didn’t want to walk. ( We made them anyway.)  On our walk a ranger told us about some of the rock art paintings and how the Aboriginals lived among the rocks during the wet season until the 1960’s with one of the elders living there until 2002 when he passed away. We walked to the top of the rocks where we could see over the floodplain. I would have liked to sit there longer but the kids didn’t want to.

Aboriginal Rock Art

Aboriginal Rock Art

Aboriginal Rock Art

Aboriginal Rock Art

Aboriginal Rock Art

View from the top of the rocks at Ubirr
over the floodplains

One of the many fires buring on the
side the road.

river crossing on the way to Ubirr.
( Looks worse than what it was.)

We spent the night at Jabiru ( Kakadu Lodge) which had a very nice campground. The kids went swimming in the pool and then we had dinner at the Bistro in the caravan park for my birthday.
Jabiru is the main town in Kakadu.

The next day we drove to Cooinda (In Kakadu)and stayed the night. In the morning we went on The Yellow Waters Cruise. It was very interesting. We saw brumbies, crocodiles, golden tree snakes and plenty of birds and ducks. After our cruise we drove to Mataranka.

Yellow Water cruise--Brumbies

Yellow Water cruise--Ducks

Yellow Water cruise--Crocodile

Yellow Water cruise--Kingfisher

Yellow Water cruise--scenery

Darwin

We left Litchfield National Park on Friday morning and started towards Darwin. (We visited the cascades before we left the park on Friday morning.) We decided to continue in a loop out of the park even though the road out of Litchfield contained approx 40km of dirt road.
We were eager to see how the van would travel and thought that 40km of dirt road was enough for the first test. The road was quite corrugated in places and it felt like I was having a back massage.When we got to the end of the dirt Todd pulled over because he wanted to check inside the caravan to make sure everything was alright. After inspecting the caravan he came back to the car and said " Yes we do need to clean up". The rest of us got out of the car to have a look. A screw in the fridge door came loose and the door was lying on the floor. Some of the contents of the fridge was scattered across the floor.The glass cover for the cook top came loose and  jiggled around 90 deg. from where it should be. We lost part of the sink plug, but the only thing that was broken was one egg. Everything else was just a matter of putting them back together again.
It didn't take Todd long to fix the fridge door and for me to clean up. We were back on the tar and continued our journey. We decided to stay at Howard Springs for a week which is approx 20mins from Darwin CBD.
We arrived at the caravan park and Robbie one of the staff members took us to a site on his quad bike.
He said that Darwin had no water restrictions and he encouraged us to wash our car and caravan.
The weather is beautiful. 30c days and warm nights.
On Saturday we drove into Darwin to visit the tourist information centre and to have a look around the shops.( Todd brought some duct tape so he could tape things down the next time we went over a dirt road.) As we drove along we noticed that the council was watering everywhere.
At the tourist Info Centre Council Staff were pressure cleaning the paths and watering the grass in the parks. Darwin is a nice city but we keep getting lost or we drive around in circles.( I had told Todd the previous day how good we were at getting around places but then we joked that the places that we were good at getting around have been small towns with few roads.)
Sunday we went to Crocosaurus Cove and Mindil Beach Sunset Markets.

Careena holding a baby crocodile
at Crocosaurus Cove

Family shot with a Blue Tounge Lizzard
( Bred to be White)

Luke with a Bearded Dragon
on his head.

Alanna getting ready to feed the
Juvenile Crocs

Juvenile crocs waiting for food.

Juvenile crocs

On Monday we tested out the wave Lagoon in Darwin and it was heaps of fun. We got there when it opened at 10am and stayed to 2pm. There are 7 different wave patterns. Each set runs  for 20 mins with a 10 min break in between. Boogie Boards and inflatable rings were supplied for everyone to use.
We parked in a Multi level carpark which had lots of car spaces left.( Not like Sydney where the parking stations are full all the time) It cost $ 17 for the day.( Quite cheap compared to Sydney.Todd said it has cost him $50 for 2 hours) After our swim we went for a walk around Darwin and passed a council worker cleaning out the inside of a parking meter. When we got back to the car at the end of the day there was a street sweeper sweeping the floors of the carpark.
Darwin is a very tidy City.

Todd and kids

Todd,Alanna & Luke

Girls and I having fun

Wave Lagoon

Girls and I having fun

Luke loved jumping the waves

On Tuesday we went on a jumping crocodile cruise up the Adelaide River. As we got on the boat we were told that the best seats were on the bottom deck near the open windows. Most of the people ahead of us went upstairs to the top deck. It was quite good because there was only one other family on the lower deck with us.There was plenty of room and we all hada good view of the crocodiles.

Croc Sunbaking on the banks
of the Aelaide River.

Croc approching the boat

Croc approching the boat

Getting ready to take the meat.

Look at those teeth!

Jumping for his lunch

Big croc we fed on the way back.

We were told to keep our arms and head inside the boat because the quickest movement a crocodile can make is turning it's head to the side.
We saw plenty of crocs and they wern't afraid of the boat. It was quite amazing.

Tuesday night at the caravan Park they had a Didgeridoo Presentation with Kelly and Clint (Father and son) Kelly grew up in Katherine in the national park then moved into Katherine to finish his schooling. He became a carpenter and then later in live became interested in Didgeridoo making. Clint was born and raised in Katherine and they moved to Darwin a couple of years back to give Clint and his 2 sisters more educational opportunities.
They collect branches and trees that have been hollowed out by termites from properties in the Douglas Daly Region. ( Authentic Didgeridoos  come from the top end of Australia where Termites are found). The branches and trees are then cut into suitable lengths, taken home and soaked in a tub of water. This softens the bark and kills the termites that are still in the logs. (As Kelly was explaining the process Clint was making a Didgeridoo.) A long metal rod is slid up and down inside the didgeridoo to remove the termite nests. Before they proceed any further they test them to see if they make a good sound. (As Kelly put it a didgeridoo or a didgeridon't ) If the sound is good they remove the bark from the outside by gently banging it with the blunt end of an axe. ( While it is still wet.)
The top is shaped and the sides are smoothed with a rasp. Bees wax is then added to the top for the mouthpiece.
Some of  the Aboriginals that they grew up with in Katherine paint the designs on the Didgeridoos. They are paid $20 for a small and $50 for a large didgeridoo.
Clint sells his Didgeridoos between $70 and $150. He was selling them to galleries and shops at this price and then they in turn would sell them for $400 or more. ( Since learning this he has ceased this method and now sells them through caravan parks and the museum in Katherine. He didn't think it was ethical that the galleries  make so much profit.
The question was asked if women could play the didgeridoo. Clint said that in some Aboriginal tribes women weren't allowed to play it but they don't mind if non-aboriginal men and women play.
We bought a Didgeridoo for $80 and it sounded pretty good.( When Clint played it.)

Wednesday we went to the museum and the wwII oil storage Tunnels. Construction  on the tunnels commenced in 1943, however they were not completed before the end of the war.  It took 400 men and 2 years to build them.

Inside the WWII Oil Storage Tunnel

Thursday the kids and I stayed at the caravan park while Todd took the car to Mitsubishi for a service. He left at 7.30 in the morning and came back about 1pm. He was not very happy because they hadn’t even looked at the car when he got back to Mitsubishi at 11.30 after spending the morning walking around Darwin. (He had the car booked in at 1pm at Bridgestone to get new tyres put on the back so he couldn’t wait for Mitsubishi any longer.)

Friday we packed up and headed for Kakadu National Park.