The Birthplace of Waltzing Matilda and QANTAS, Country Music Has-been, some Bush Poetry and our Dinosaur Trek

After some administrative work (faxes/emails) and a quick sticky-beak into the Cloncurry, Royal Flying Doctor Service museum – I felt obligated to go given my profession but didn’t stay long as we needed to get back on the road – we headed out towards Winton. Winton is not only the home of Waltzing Matilda – the iconic song of white Australia, and apparently where QANTAS staged its first passenger flight (the plane only had space for one passenger at the time!) but is also the start of the Dinosaur Track – a self-driven tourist track to three towns which have had significant dinosaur finds. We fell into a bit of luck when we arrived as we managed to arbitrarily pick the caravan park with all the evening entertainment and a roast dinner to boot! It looked to be a great afternoon! We arrived at the Waltzing Matilda museum – the centrepiece of the town, at about 3:30 pm so only had about 45 mins to see what usually takes 90 minutes to complete. In retrospect – young children can probably only stand about 45 mins or less of such a place so again we inadvertently lucked out. The first thing to see in the museum is a life-size diorama of the scene for the song. A large television angles out of the billabong and a seemingly hazy, ghostly image of the swagman relates the story and a bit of the history of the song. It was all quite moving and both Jen and I were brought to tears by the end. ‘Waltzing’ is apparently a term derived from the German – ‘auf der walz’ – and in the early Australian context essentially referred to someone tramping around or traveling. ‘Matilda’ is the term which refers to the traveler’s swag bag that he carries over his shoulder and is essentially what he sleeps upon. Banjo Paterson borrowed the tune from a Scottish ballad his then fiancée was playing on the piano and fashioned the words to it. In the 1960’s (if I recall more or less correctly) a national poll had 9 out 10 Australians wishing it to be their national anthem. When an Australian first won a gold at the Olympics, it was played when they were receiving their medal. It has been recorded over 100 times in numerous versions and you could actually purchase a CD at the museum with 14 different versions - not sure how long that would last in the car stereo! The rest of the museum was essentially a conglomeration of recent artwork, a detailed history of the life and times of Banjo Paterson and Waltzing Matilda, and then room upon room of antique relics from ages bygone including an actual steam train engine and passenger car. We zipped through it all with much appreciation and headed back to the caravan park to enjoy the evening festivities. An aging country music ‘star’ was playing a host of his ‘award-winning’ songs and the kids enjoyed watching for about 5 minutes and then ventured back to the caravan to play monopoly – guess they’re not country music fans (thank god!). Piper did return and her blonde hair and cute smile negotiated her a spot on the stage playing tambourine for the last song of the day. She was pretty enthralled and received a signed poster from the country star (Graham Rodger). The roast dinner was a treat – like having a home-cooked meal back at the Mitchell dining room table and was followed by a bush poetry show. The poets were both Australian Champions in their art and captivated us with a number of yarns and poems, both humorous and tragic. The kids were invited to participate at the end and were in their element playing for the crowd. All was well until the local party-house got into full swing, complete with dup-dup music, the occasional electric guitar and loud drunk squabbling or perhaps relating a story they felt all should hear into the wee hours of the night. Needless to say, Jen and I slept rather poorly but dragged ourselves out of bed the next day for a full on adventure of the Dinosaur Track.



We had to pack up the caravan before leaving as the caravan park proprietor had agreed to allow us to leave it while we drove into Lark Quarry – home to the only evidence of a dinosaur stampede ever uncovered. The road was fairly rough in sections so we were glad we had left Gertrude back in Winton. Deep in the middle of nowhere a large eco-built shed rises from the surrounding scrub and reddish earth with a 50 metre walkway leading to the front door. The shed was built to protect the fossilized stampede which has been revealed under the limestone by the removal of some 60 tonnes of rock and dirt by hand. An opal fossicker was picking around the area in the early 60’s and came across a few small fossilized footprints he felt were simply from a small bird. He eventually showed a colleague of his and eventually got around to sending a sample to Queensland University. It resulted in a full on dig of the area and discovery of over 3000 other prints and a story written in the ancient clay. The prints suggest that a mass of two different types of bird-like dinosaurs – one the size of a rooster and the other, an emu, were drinking at an inland body of water which existed in the area at the time. As they were drinking a large carnivorous therapod (T-Rex) happened upon them and his/her sudden appearance led to a mad scrambling of dinosaurs out of the area. The large prints stop near to where the edge of the water was posited to exist and the palaentologists theorize he/she must have caught some tucker in the process. It was a phenomenal little window into ancient times and was well worth the 110 kms into the scrub. After collecting Gertrude and finding your typical grease-filled, crappy-food country-town café and feeding the troupes something akin to a chicken burger – we headed towards Longreach to the Age of Dinosaurs laboratory. It sits atop of an outcrop of rock on a property that was donated by the landowner upon which a massive find of dinosaur bones have been uncovered. The bones were discovered in 1998 simply by happen-stance while the farmer was mustering sheep. The bones were actually visible on the surface. Since then a shed has been built to house the bones and various volunteers and paid workers work on chipping rock from the bones and piecing together the creatures. Interestingly, the project is not affiliated with any university and operates predominantly on volunteer workers who join the crew for the digs and in carefully unmasking the bones from their rocky coverings. As per usual we’d arrived late and joined the small group for ‘the meat’ of the tour – seeing the volunteer palaeontology-wannabes strip away the bones and the replica models of the beasts that have been thus uncovered. It’s almost as if they’ve uncovered something akin to an elephant’s graveyard, the bones seem so thick and ever present. Thus far they have a good 5 years of work stacked in their storehouse waiting to be cleaned. They have discovered at least two new species of Sauropod (like Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus) and a large raptor carnivore – very scary looking. Ironically, they’ve named one of the sauropods, Wade! It was fascinating and the kids were rapt. One year we hope to return to join them in a dig but we’ll see how things go. Finally, we clamboured on-board Bessie to head to Hughenden some 214 kms north of Winton and continue our dinosaur quest. All was well until the rather vocal caravan park attendant decided I needed her assistance parking the van. This has occurred three times in our sojourn and each time it has driven me secretly crazy! I think they assume that due to perhaps my youth, collection of bikes on top or the Canadian sticker on the back that I am incapable of backing up the caravan into a spot. In my typical rebellious-style, I tuned my loud-mouthed attendant out and essentially got down to parking the van as per usual. It led to her essentially yelling at me from only metres away – I’m sure the whole caravan park stuck their heads out of their vans wondering what was going on. If I wasn’t a peaceful sort, she would have copped a few choice words if not more. I managed to park it in the end and right where it needed to be.