Andy, Nessa, James & Jemma’s All Aussie Adventures: September 2022

This post comes with a warning - I think it might go on for a bit.

We have been back in Adelaide for just over 3 weeks and I have been wanting to get my thoughts down for ages. I thought a fantastic opportunity would present itself when Andy went to Europe for a dear friends wedding (Capri and Rome!)...but then the kids and I got COVID.

The risk with waiting so long to post about something is losing the presence, the excitement and that sense of immersion but I am going to give it a crack.

I am tracking back to the Dinosaur Trail, which in my mind really began once we entered Queensland back at the beginning of August.

The Dinosaur Trail is a 735km loop taking in the following towns and sights Richmond - Winton - Lark Quarry - Hughenden - Porcupine Gorge - Richmond according to the Outback Qld tourism website. I had also hoped (so much) to start our Dino adventures in Boodjamulla National Park as it includes the Riversleigh World Heritage Area: it is one of the most significant fossil deposits in the world and the richest known fossil mammal deposit in Australia. It has revealed records of Gondwanan life forms which existed prior to the break up of this ancient continent. It made sense to visit, we would be driving right past it, in a manner of speaking.

Boodjamulla NP is also known for its great beauty, an oasis in the outback. To say I was disappointed when I came to grips with the fact that we would NOT be going is an enormous understatement. On our enviable list of highlights on our amazing 9 week tour Boodjamulla was the place I was most looking forward to. Remote national park camping, extraordinary beauty, hikes, canoeing...it took some getting over. Common sense reigned as we had a seriously compromised vehicle already and heading hundreds of kms into the wild from an already super-remote place just didn't make sense.

Andy assures me that we WILL get there one day. Just to put it all in perspective Boodjamulla is in the middle of nowhere. It is 280km north of Camooweal on (dodgy we are told) dirt roads, which makes for a 560km detour. From Camooweal. Camooweal is 2000km from Adelaide give or take, and it's not really on the way to or from anywhere...so it's on the one-day list. I needed to flesh this out as I was quite disappointed - did I say that already? I just wanted it here in writing.

Where is Boodjamulla National Park?

And so we left Camooweal with hopes of having the bloody car's steering seen to, but with no idea when or where this would happen the trip was hanging on a hinge. We headed East as you know and found respite in the friendliest little town in the outback. Cloncurry - forever remembered as the place of can-do mechanics and welcoming smiles. Driving the Patrol without power steering on single lane highways populated by caravanners in a hurry and road-trains with deadlines is not an experience I wish to have again. The difference in being able to respond at speed in a fraction of second is life and a wrecked car at best so having the steering fixed (for now) took a lot of tension out of our days, and we quietly set our course East towards Richmond: stop #1 of the Dino Trail. And we were back on track.

Celebration of the tough droughtmaster cattle breed that make it possible to raise beef cattle in this tricky country. Cloncurry wanderings while waiting for the Patrol's steering to be fixed. It was hot and the kids and I were left in town for an unknown duration while Andy got the help we needed. We ended up staying the night in a cabin in Cloncurry caravan park.

Cowboy country - Outback Queensland. Jemma = shoes optional. Quick stop at Julia Creek visitors centre and photo opp

First <literal> sign you are entering Dinosaur country, west of Richmond

RICHMOND - KRONOSAURUS KORNER (3rd August 2022)

We were excited to be back underway, back on track and on the Dinosaur Trail at last. Kronosaurus Korner (so Korny) is Australia's premier marine fossil museum. It houses over 1100 unique fossils from the Richmond area in outback Queensland. It is special in that most fossils on display are the actual fossils rather than casts of fossils. The majority of fossils are Early Cretaceous 100-115MYO marine reptiles as well as fishes, ammonites and squids that once dominated Australia's ancient, shallow inland Eromanga sea. It all began with the 1989 discovery of the most complete pliosaur skeleton in the world, on Marathon Station. Other significant finds followed and scientists convened to create a museum to prepare, conserve and showcase the fossils from the local area.

Richmond is a very small outback town, with a population of about 650 (way more galahs live there than people, way more).

Lifesize!!!!!!!! replica of Kronosaurus to greet visitors outside the museum.

Kronosaurus queenslandicus belongs to an extinct group of marine reptiles, the plesiosaurs. It would have been the dominant marine predator of its time reaching 10-11m in length and weighing 11,000kg. For reference the dominant marine predators today; the great white sharks reach at most 5m, and weigh in at 2300kg and orcas can grow to 8m and 4000kg. Kronosaurus was big! Pretty glad they are no longer in the sea where I like to swim.

Kronosaurus mandible with saltwater croc mandible for comparison. Saltwater crocs grow to about 6m and weigh in at a puny 1300kg at the biggest

The museum had incredible displays with paleo art to bring the fossils to life.The kids were extremely engaged and interested which was fortunate as we had signed up for the $300 Dino Trail multi pass which would grant us entry into all 4 attractions. Entry to Kronosaurus Korner included a brief 10-15 minute video which gave a a really good overview of the ecology of the area in the Early Cretaceous, and who was finding what and where. It turned out that a good portion of the incredible fossils were found, and then donated, by graziers of surrounding cattle stations who chanced upon these incredible and significant fossils while spraying for weeds or mustering.

James with the cutest ever Kunbarrasaurus ieversi an ornithischian dinosaur. Kunbarrasaurus ieversi, was a primitive member of the Ankylosauria and was a small, bulky dinosaur with short limbs and prominent bony armour.
Also included in admission was the use of an audio guide which was brilliant; you just press the number of the exhibit you'd like to hear about and away you go. James thought this was exceptional and liked that if he wasn't all that interested you didn't need to listen to the whole thing, for example the names of the geological formations the fossil was found in. You could control how much information you took in. One thing he did find difficult to come to terms with was that the exhibits were not in numerical order. I suppose as exhibits are changed or updated they just switch the numbers rather than reordering the whole museum, and so he spent a little while trying to find #9. Once he accepted that he did not have to complete every audio entry ( he might not even have been able to!) in order he just moved happily from exhibit to exhibit.

The above two photos are from the Richmond polycotylid or Richmond pliosaur/plesiosaur. Found on Marathon Station in 1989 it is still to be formally described. It is one of the most complete vertebrate fossils found in Australia, and one of the earliest known fossils of its type in the world at approximately 100MYO. It was a 4.25m long air breathing marine reptile of the Eromanga Sea.
It is a breath taking and beautiful fossil.

Ammonites the size of car tyres you say! Lots of marine invertebrates including nautiloids, ammonioids, belemnites and vampyromorphs (think Vampire squid, the only species still living) have been found around Richmond and there was a healthy display of these fossils.

Ichthyosaur and baby suspended from ceiling. Ichthyosaur fossils are relatively common around Richmond and several specimens of mother and baby have been found which suggests that the shallow sea was a good place to give birth. There was also a fossil of a pregnant female ichthyosaur which showed the vertebrae of an embryo.

Kronosaurus Korner surpassed our expectations and we were now very excited to see what the rest of the Dino Trail had in store for us.

We spent the night at the Richmond Lakeview caravan park which, lucky for us, had a free dino themed water park just a short walk away. It wasn't really that hot but kids + water = happy so we spent some time there blowing off some steam and getting the wiggles out before dinner and bed and more dinosaurs tomorrow.

The caravan park was one of the noisiest places I have ever tried to sleep. Situated just off the Flinders highway and opposite a roadhouse with a truck stop area you would think it would be trucks keeping us awake. Galahs! Hundreds and hundreds, possibly thousands of galahs! They took flight at the slightest provocation, all at once, squawking and doing laps until they could settle to roost again, only to be upset by the next truck hurtling along the highway. This went on all night. They must be such tired birds.

You might have noticed that we are not doing the Dinosuar Trail in the strict order as put out by Queensland tourism but it worked out just fine for us.

HUGHENDEN - FLINDERS DISCOVERY CENTRE

Stop #2 on our Dino Trail was Hughenden, also in the Flinders Highway, is a slightly bigger town than Richmond

Never miss an opportunity to stick your head through a photo backdrop thingy.

Never!

Muttaburrasaurus replica outside the Flinders Discovery Centre.
Found near the town of Muttaburra south of Hughenden in 1963 it is still being studied. It was a 7m long herbivorous ornithopod dinosaur. Ornithopods usually had horny beaks instead of teeth and were bipedal. Muttaburrasaurus has a spiked thumb on each forelimb, a trait is shares with iguandon type dinosaurs found in other parts of the world.

Inside the Discovery Centre - 'Hughie' - pretty sure this was a cast rather than the actual fossil bones.
The Discovery Centre was undergoing some upgrades and expansion with some areas and exhibits closed off. One half of the centre housed the Muttburrasaurus display as well as an eclectic collection of fossils and other geological specimens from all over Australia, and the world.
Probably the best thing at the Flinders Discovery Centre was the short film animating the deposition of the various layers of rocks in the canyon at Porcupine Gorge over hundreds of millions of years.
The other half contained a history of the sheep and cattle industry in the area. This was just a taste of what was to come in terms of the history of the wool industry in Outback Queensland, violent shearers strikes, the beginning of the Australian Labour Party and Banjo Paterson's Waltzing Matilda - we had NO idea!
As you can probably imagine, establishing a wool industry in outback Queensland was no simple undertaking with water being one of the biggest issues faced by early graziers. Towns in outback Queensland rely on bore water from the Great Artesian Basin.

The Flinders Discovery Centre was very different to Kronosaurus Korner and we really did not know what to expect from the rest of Australia's Dinosaur Trail, but that would have to wait as we had some camping to do.

With Boodjamulla off the itinerary Andy and I rejigged a few things and in hindsight they definitely worked out for the best. We were able to spend 4 nights at Porcupine Gorge National Park 60km north of Hughenden. It was on the list of must-see attractions in the area. It also gave us an opportunity to pause for a few days. We had been on the move for weeks it seemed, add in the stress and changes that came with the steering failing and time lost, we needed a break.

Booking camp sites online is a great concept in theory but the reality is you really don't know what you're going to get; will the site be big enough? Will we be really close to other people without kids who just want peace and quiet, not giggling kids at sun-up? Will there be some jerks in our site when we get there? Most of the time it's fine, and fellow campers are generally a tolerant bunch but what do you do when your tent just will not fit on the tent pad built for that purpose? And the camp site is fully booked.

This happened at Porcupine Gorge.

Andy very quickly decided to put our enormous (6m x 2.5m) tent up in amongst the trees to the rear of the site, and kind of on a path. Not technically the site, but what could we do? I was very nervous that the Ranger might come and ask us to move but we didn't see the Ranger the whole time we were there so after a time it seemed like it would be fine, and it was.

The view from the rim of the gorge a short walk from the camp-ground. You can see the 'pyrmaid' in the distance.

You can glimpse the tent off to the right amongst the trees. Cheeky! I think they are James' knees you can see in the hammock. Jem most likely playing in the dirt somewhere!

Dinner time

Quiet reading time. Jemma opted to take this enormous squishmallow instead of a pillow. It was absolutely filthy at this stage.

On our way down into the Gorge for the day. It was about a 1.2km each way walk. Steep and steppy in parts - it was hard both ways!

Our first full day at Porcupine Gorge was unseasonably hot, mid-30s so we walked down into the Gorge before it got too hot and spent the rest of the day down there with picnic lunch and chilled cordial drinks.

The kids LOVED the river. The water was crystal clear with fish and turtles and rocks and sand and overhangs. There were parts where you could easily walk across the river and deeper parts that required swimming. It was glorious. The only thing missing was reliable shade. We had the shade of a couple of immature acacia's which required regular shifts of all our gear. Even the adults swam. Well I swam, Andy partially immersed himself. We played catching games and just noodled the day away.

After hours and hours in the water the kids could barely lift their bodies to eat dinner. And guess what! We get to do it all again tomorrow!

Back in the gorge for another day of playing and exploring.

This little Rufous Bettong and its mate visited us every night of our stay. They made a sound like moth wings beating inside something which is what I thought it was when I first heard it. They are super cute marsupials about the size of a big rabbit and seemed completely unconcerned about our presence. they hopped between our legs and under the table.

Back down in the gorge, that is the pyramid in the background

Fun!

The way up in the late afternoon

And down again....

Exploring different areas of the gorge and river for the best swimming spots

Andy trying to fix Jem's beloved Frozen thong with plastic bread ties and a lighter. It was successful in the very short term.

Porcupine Gorge's namesake - a juvenile echidna wandered through the camp ground one afternoon causing much excitement. Another native animal that seemed unconcerned that humans were around.