Macs with Packs: Walking in Dinosaur Tracks

Welcome back!

Channel Country is dinosaur country and Winton has more than its fair share of dinosaur relics. Our first stop was the museum on the way into Winton where we saw the bones of a huge plant-eater and a small(ish) meat-eater that were found together. The site was on a "jump up", a cool name for a rocky, flat-topped outcrop. These are only small but they give amazing views over the flat lands around them.

We had a lot to see in two days so we headed out at dusk to check out the "musical fence". This is a fence with wires that can be hit to make different notes but the real feature was all the other percussion instruments made out of old drums, pans, hub caps, anything! There was an entire drum kit too!

The sun set on the edge of the dusty town behind a strategically placed sign. It was pretty spectacular! It's funny how several towns seem to have the same claim to fame. Didn't Longreach just convince us that it was the birthplace of Qantas? No matter which town it really was, Winton wins the special sign award!

We stayed in a house - luxury! It was amazing having so much space but the artesian water was pretty high on the stink-o-meter. It was back to a quick underarm splash whenever possible.

We had a huge day the next day with a mere 110 km drive to another dinosaur site. This one though was all about footprints, not fossils. 95 million years ago, groups of two different dinosaurs came to a waterhole to drink. A large meat-eater then chased them. They all left frantic footprints in the mud which eventually fossilised. There were over 3,000 footprints! It was a really interesting place.

After the tour, we went for a walk in the desert scrub nearby. It was really cool. We climbed up one of the jump ups for fabulous views. It was really interesting.

We then drove nearly all the way back to Winton to go to Bladensberg National Park. The roads here were unmade and really dusty in places and passing road trains created clouds of dust that would temporarily blind us.

Like many large historical farms in this part of Queensland, Bladensberg was sold to the Qld government in the 1980's or 90's as part of a push to preserve special locations as National Parks. The original homestead was still there and you can only begin to imagine what it must have been like in the old days when this is the outlook from the homestead:

The highlight at Bladensberg for us was driving the rough 4WD track to Scrammy, another jump-up. There were waterholes (muddy of course), rugged cliffs and ravines. It was amazing!

Growing on the top of the jump-up were the most amazing warped trees I've ever seen. They twisted and contorted. They bent back on themselves and bent down to the ground and back up again. They were so cool!

The landscape here was like something out of a Dr Seuss book.

Winton was as far north-west as we would be going. It was time to leave Channel Country and head south-east for a bit to pick up our original bookings that we had before we had to change our plans due to covid restrictions. We didn't want to double back on our tracks though so we did a longer loop through some smaller towns. Even these had caravans going through them! One of these towns was Muttaburra, home of yet another dinosaur., wonderfully named the Muttaburrasaurus After Muttaburra, I dropped John off about 30kms out of Barcaldine and he rode in.

Barcaldine was very appealing, largely due to the large green trees that lined the streets, something we haven't seen anywhere else. We've been craving Asian food as we've been getting basic pub meals at most places and I was rapt to get a curry in the open-air eatery across the road from our cabin.

We were up early thanks to the people in the adjoining cabin who got up and banged things over & over from 5am so we walked to the Tree of Knowledge monument at dawn. This is the site where shearers went on strike in 1891 to demand better working conditions. They went on to form the Australian Workers' Union which led to the Australian Labour Party. (Funnily enough, they made the same claims about a tree at Bladensberg.)

The tree was mysteriously poisoned a decade or two ago so they built a huge sculpture around it. It wasn't attractive from the outside but inside was great! They hung huge wooden wind chimes from an enormous box-like structure and the space they left was the shape of the original tree. It was pretty incredible.

We wandered around the pleasant town. Once again we missed a movie being shown in a gorgeous vintage theatre by one night....

I don't know what the neighbours thought of the huge windmill in the main street that squeaked and squealed non-stop but it looked nice!

The drive from Barcaldine to Emerald was a sedate one as it was highway all the way, however it was fun! About half an hour out of Barcaldine a large road sign appeared. It said "Fatigue Zone. Trivia games help drivers stay alert". We were scratching our heads trying to work out what they were getting at when, a few kilometres later, another sign appeared. It said, "Fatigue Zone. Trivia question. How many shearers were jailed in the 1891 strike?"

Sign 3 said, "Hint: more than 10"

Sign 4 said, "Answer: 13"

What a classic!

Just after these signs we started noticing that the termite mounds near the road were decorated with clothes and hats! This went on for many kms. In between there was a dead pig as well (after roos, pigs would have to be the next most common roadkill).

A while later we were heading for the town of Alpha. The next sign said:

"Fatigue Trivia. What is the first letter of the Greek alphabet?"
Sign 2 said:

Sign 3 said: "Answer: Alpha"

There were more later too. What a great way to keep people alert on such long stretches of road!

We came to a sign showing that we were crossing the great Dividing Range. We saw our first real hills since we left home. The trees suddenly got bigger and we drove past green paddocks and orchards as we approached Emerald. We drove into Emerald and it was like we had arrived on another planet. There were green trees, green grass, neon lights, chain stores, people of different nationalities, good coffee and Thai takeaways! Plus everyone's cars are clean! I suddenly felt like we had been out in the sticks. It's all so incredibly different.

We used our night here to stock up (and get Thai takeaways!) then set off the next day for Carnarvan Gorge. This is a long way south but this is where we pick up our original route that we were supposed to take before covid changed everything. On the way we passed spectacular mountains. We learned this was Minerva Hills National park. We're thinking about changing our plan to come back here as it looks amazing!

Our 'cabins' at Carnarvan Gorge were really a blend of a tent and a cabin. I suppose it's glamping but I can't really see any advantage of doing it this way. We soon learnt the disadvantages though. As the temperatures dropped outside at night, they did the same inside. We froze during our second night. Of course, in summer, it must get so hot. They provided both a heater and an air-conditioner. What a ridiculous waste of energy.

One surprising thing about where we stayed though was that it had a French café run by French people. The pastries were sensational! They even made a special French hot chocolate for me!

We arrived in the early afternoon, unpacked then headed to the ranger's office of the national park to get info. On the way we saw numerous wallabies that were reasonably tame.

We decided to hit one of the harder walks - the climb up to Boolomba Bluff. I wasn't really quite fit enough for strenuous walks but there's nothing like getting fit on the job! It took us about 1.5 hours to climb the steep path and steps.

There were some cool rock formations en-route.

It was all really beautiful.

The view from the top was spectacular. As one enthusiastic girl we passed said, (she looked about 12 years old), "You can see over all of Queensland!" That was a slight exaggeration but it was still pretty amazing.

Afterwards we wandered along a short walk near the ranger station. The ranger had told us that sometimes you can see a platypus at dawn or dusk. As it was dusk, we thought we'd take a look. Much to our amazement we saw one! We've never seen a platypus in the wild before. We stood very quiet and still and watched for a while as it dived and surfaced. Awesome!

On our main day there, we tackled the big gorge walk. It was sensational! It started off with a creek crossing - one of many we would end up doing.

The track meandered through rainforest that included rare, ancient plants. There are interesting side gorges to explore as well. The first side gorge we went to was The Ampitheatre. This was amazing! We entered through a crack in the gorge. That's the crack above John in this photo.

We found ourselves in a big cavern carved out by water. The cavern was open to the sky and continues to get carved out each time it rains. From the inside of the cavern, the entrance looked like something from a sci-fi movie.

The next gorge was Ward's Canyon. We climbed up past a waterfall to a stunning gorge at the top. A type of growth on the rocks make the water look bright red in places.

We saw an ancient plant that is only found in several places in Australia. The gorge was beautiful.

Our last destination was the Art Gallery. Over 2,000 old aboriginal paintings and carvings line a long canyon wall. They seemed in very good condition considering they were exposed to the elements.

We could have gone on further into the gorge but the next point of interest was another 8kms return and reluctantly we decided not to do it. It was just as well as the 12 or 14 kms that we did left us recovering in our room for the rest of the day!

On our last morning we got up before dawn and made our way to Mickey's Gorge. Walking in was a bit tricky as there was no sunlight yet but we were rewarded with a special atmosphere and we had the place to ourselves. The sun started to shine on the cliff above us making it glow.