Winton

Wow, tumble weed blowing down the road, flat plains and not a tree in sight.  What an amazing part of the country it is.  The area is very flat except the occasional messa.  They just jump out of the ground at strange locations.  Very pretty indeed.  We stayed at the Matilda Caravan Park in Winton which was located on the edge of Winton.  Every night they had entertainment.  Two bush poets and Elvis even came to visit.

While in Winton we did the three majors attactions.  The first one was the Waltzing Matilda Centre.  We read and listen to and look at pictures and displayes on the very start of the song by Banjo Paterson.  What we do not hear very often is that Winton may have played the song with lyrics first in its pub but the song was played by Christina Macpherson to Banjo Paterson.  She had heard the tune in Warrnabool then played it to Banjo.  Banjo then pen the words to the tuned that started our love with the song.  Did you know that Kyuna was were the billabong was and where it happened and the swagmand was said to be a unionist up to stir up trouble in the the shearing strikes.  He was said to of burnt a shearing shed full of sheep that he then was cornered at the billabong and shot, not drown as the song insists.  Ah the poets lyrical licence continues on, it's not a true story unless its full of a few tall truths...lol. 

There were so many other displays at the Centre also that we wandered around for a good couple of hours.  The kids climbed over anything that was standing still.  If Austin had his way he would have climbed to the top of the train and called out..."I'm king of the world!"

Just a little bit of Geelong
in every place

In the afternoon we set off to do our first dinosaur adventure.  We visited the Age of Dinosaurs Fossil Preperation Area.  It was located about 20 minutes out of Winton ontop of one of the messas.  It was just an amazing experience.  We saw real dinosaur bones and got to even touch real fossils.  Not something you get to do at any other museum.  It was a very interesting tour. 



We then drove around Winton a little to see other highlights including the Musical Fence. The kids had a ball making the noisiest music you ever heard. They banged, tapped, hit and played a beat on drums made of barrels and tins, cymbals made of hubcaps and bells made of gas cylinders. The fence even sang at us at different pitches. I really good idea.

Our next morning we drove into around the corner to Arno's Wall.   An excellent use of all the possible junk metal you can think of.  I was so interesting looking at the wall discovering everything from a motorbike to a stove and even a kitchen sink.  Tuck way into a corner was even a batman figurine.  What a weird wall but still really cool.

We then drove a 110 km drive out to Lark Quarry.  The road was 50km of bitumen and 60km of bulldust.  There was that many cattle, sheep, horses, kangaroos and wallabys along the road that I was a spotter for most of the trip.  The reward of this trip was amazing.  We reached the quarry with time to eat a little lunch then join the tour.  What an amazing place.  We walked up a walkway to meet Vern our tour guide.  We then listen and learnt a few interesting facts and then were taken into a diplay area.  Inside they have unearthed 3300 fossilised dinosaur footprints.  It is a dinosaur stampede preseserved for over 100 million years.  This is the inspiration for the dinosaure stampede in Jurassic Park.  How cool is that.  But better than that being in a place that actually had dinosaur walk and feed was so surreal.  Kaleb kept asking where the dinosaurs were.  Now how do you explain that to a 4 year old and make sense.  The walk around the Quarry was also very enjoyable and pretty.

Once we arrived back in Winton we looked a little more around the town visiting Corfield and Fitzmaurice Building and the Royal Open Air Cinema.  Our final destination in Winton was the Winton Diamantina Heritage Truck & Machinery Museum.  The next 50 pictures are all dedicated to Nigel and his love of trucks.