Winton

Winton may have lost out to Longreach as the home of Qantas, but it has firmly established itself as the home of Waltzing Matilda, although the song wasn't actually written here. However, the first public performance was at a pub in Winton, so the town has been riding on its coattails ever since. One of Winton's major attractions is the Waltzing Matilda Centre ("the only museum dedicated to a song") which gives more information than you could possibly be interested in about the history of the song and the seemingly endless versions recorded in the last 100 years. By the time we'd spent a few hours there we thought we would scream if we heard the jolly swagman one more time, but apart from that we quite enjoyed it.

Not content with just relying on a song to bring in the tourists, Winton has started to promote itself as the Dinosaur Capital of Australia. We visited the Australian Age of Dinosaurs expecting to find a museum, but the overpriced tour took us into a big tin shed to see unqualified amateurs cleaning up bones from a local find. The young guide was very enthusiastic but didn't appear terribly knowledgable. Apparently we were just a few years too early, as a new "fully interactive" museum is being built, no idea of when it will be open.

Far more interesting was Lark Quarry, which protects tracks left by a dinosaur stampede nearly 100 million years ago. According to the reconstruction, hundreds of small dinosaurs were drinking at a waterhole, when a large canivorous dino appeared (a bit like T-Rex, only smaller). The little dinosaurs fled in panic, leaving thousands of footprints. You can see the foot print of the big meat eater in the photo on the right, along with little prints of the ones that scattered in panic. Although the prints look raised in the photo, they are in fact proper footprints sunk into the ancient mud, preserved as the mud was covered in silt and gradually turned into stone.

The area around Winton is flat grassy plains for hundreds of kilometres, interspersed with flat topped mesas where harder rock has prevented erosion underneath. We spent a day at Bladensburg National Park, doing both scenic drives and a walk to a good lookout on the edge of a mesa. You can see all the way to the horizon, you really know you are in the outback.

Apart from all these attractions Winton has a few minor items of interest for the tourist. We visited Arno's Wall, built by a local artist and incorporating all manner of items he scavenged over the years from the tip, the World's First Musical Fence, a post and wire fence that gives off different notes when hit with a stick, and the local open air theatre, home to the World's Largest Deckchair. Winton certainly offers thrills for the visiting adventurer!