Another big day for us. Up super early to drive 110km down the road to the site of a dinosaur stampede. It is the only place in the world that they have been able to record and preserve the evidence of such a stampede. So there we were, the guide did his thing and then, wow, they let you into the building and you can stand just above but right next to the clearly visible marks in the rock of a dinosaurs footprints. The story goes that two different species that were happy to co-exist were drinking at a waterhole when a meat eating larger dinosaur happened upon them and tried to catch himself a meal of one or more of the smaller dinosaurs. They flocked together then stampeded directly past the bigger one in their rush to get away. There in the rock is the clear tracks and evidence of the event. 95 million years old and we got to see it. Awesome. The other thing I am finding hard to come to grips with is the information that most of Australia was one big rain forest, all green and wet. We are in arid land now and it is hard to do the jump to accept this same area was once a lush green forest with constantly falling rain. And the people talk about global warming, its been happening now for 95 million years!!!!!
When we got back into town we went to the Matilda Centre.
Apparently both Banjo Patterson and Henry Lawson came to this area at some stage in their lives. The entire area is mentioned again and again in their various works.
Back to Banjo. He wrote Waltzing Matilda on a property just out of Winton and the first recorded performance of it was at a hotel here in Winton. The hotel still operates, we thought we would drop in for a beer while we are here but so far we have not made it in there. Maybe tomorrow!
The Matilda Centre is a fascinating place, part memorial to the song, part museum of the Winton area. The place is full of information on the song, from its first outing to all the various versions that have been released by all sorts of groups and bands world wide. Did you know that Winston Churchill sang the song to Charles de Gaulle in the presence of Robert Menzies????? How wierd is that? The English PM singing to the President of France in the company of the Prime Minister of Australia. In the museum part is all sorts of extemely old stuff recording the history of Winton, fascinating stuff.
sounds like you're having a ball.
ReplyDeleteYou do know iron ore in made under water right? As in Paraburdoo was under the ocean 1.8 million years ago (give or take a mill)