Marianne has requested that we do a trip to Queensland's outback, so we have driven a long way to reach Winton in Western Queensland. Just south of this small outback town is an attraction where you can see dinosaur footprints at a spectacular museum. This wiki article gives a lot more information.
Entrance to the Museum.
The footprints were actually found about 80 km north-west of Winton but were gradually being damaged by the harsh climate after they were uncovered. A decision was made to transfer them to a new museum that sits on top of a Jump-Up 'mesa', overlooking the vast flat countryside.
There are various parts to the museum and we decided to do the part of the museum where you can see the footprints. We will see the other parts tomorrow.
A special building houses the transferred footprints. The area was cut up into smaller pieces and transferred. Apparently, the cutting up process was easy since much of the area was already crumbling from the harsh environment.
So here is a footprint from a large dinosaur.
Just below the yellow marker is one of the cuts.
The yellow marker is close to a smaller footprint from a much smaller dinosaur. The wiki article gives more details.
If I heard and remembered correctly, the yellow marker is next to the impression made by an ancient lung-fish's upper lip while feeding. I took many more photos, but they all just show impressions of various sizes. However, it is all very impressive.
The building that houses the footprints.
View from the Jump-Up.
Marianne guarding a dinosaur. It was a little chilly with a light breeze. August is often the coldest month in Oz, but I was just wearing a T-shirt. The breeze feels so fresh and clean.
It was a dinosaur of this size that made the larger footprints.
Some of the footprints were left by the parent's child who was playing around.
I was intrigued by this photo of Marianne looking for a bathroom. It looks mysterious with the narrow patch of white from her shirt.
Marianne's brekkie was this stack of corn fritters. I was planning to fib and say that she ordered another round when she polished off the stack, but she only got half-way through.
