We've been moving due east, through dinosaur country. We only stopped one night at Richmond, doing the town heritage walk in the evening after we arrived, and visiting Kronosaurus Korner, a fossil information and display centre, the next morning before we moved on. Richmond is sited on what was the floor of an ancient sea, and the flat land around is noted for many fossil finds. Most of the fossils are sea animals, including the Richmond Pliosaur, Australian ichthyosaur and Kronosaurus Queenslandicus. There is also a remarkably well preserved fossil of the Minmi, which must have been washed into the sea after it had died. The fossil even included the skin of the little creature, so they can tell exactly what it looked like. The picture at left shows a recreation of the minmi. Kronosaurus Korner was a very well set up museum, with interesting displays and heaps of information. It certainly justified stopping off in this town in the middle of Queensland.
From Richmond we headed to Hughenden for a couple of nights. The Hughenden area was on the shores of the same ancient sea, and is also rich in fossils. They have claimed the Muttaburrasaurus, first found a couple of hundred kilometres further south at Muttaburra, as their own, and have replicas of both the fossil skeleton and the recreated dinosaur on show in town. The Fossil Corner exhibition wasn't nearly as sophisticated as Kronosaurus Korner in Richmond, but at $5 each we felt we got our money's worth.
Hughenden has put quite a lot of effort into attracting visitors to town and there is quite a bit to see. Apart from 'Mutt' shown above, there are quite a few other sculptures in town, most made from old windmill or tractor parts. Quite a few, but not all, of these have a dinosaur theme. Just south of town there is a small hill (Mt Walker) with lookouts giving a panoramic 360 degree view of the flat plains around the town. We also did a couple of 4-wd 'scenic drives', neither of which was particularly scenic or really needed a 4-wd to complete. However, they gave us another view of this dry pastoral landscape.
Apart from exploring all things dinosaur related, we also spent half a day going to Porcupine Gorge, a deep chasm gouged into the flat plains about 60 km north of Hughenden. The drawback of walking down into a gorge is that the hard bit comes at the end when you have to climb back up again, and with the rather straggly native vegetation not providing much shade it was rather a hot effort, but plenty of water and taking our time allowed us to make it. The creek at the bottom of the gorge is still flowing surprisingly well, given it is still the dry season here, and made a nice place to sit beside and eat the fruit we had brought. The rock formation shown in the photo is known as pyramid rock, for obvious reasons.
Another 250km drive further east brought us to Charters Towers, which started life as a gold rush town in 1872. It is still a prosperous looking service centre for the surrounding pastoral properties, with many lovely old buildings remaining from the gold rush days. We did the history walk around town, the highlight of which would have to be the restored Stock Exchange Arcade. The trading was done from the balcony pictured, with the masses below eagerly bidding up the price of shares in the various 'sure thing' mines on offer. As in other frontier towns, fortunes were made and lost quickly, and there were some interesting stories told on the information panels and displays in the arcade. We also went up the local lookout - more flat plains - and had a game of golf.
We've been moving due east, through dinosaur country. We only stopped one night at Richmond, doing the town heritage walk in the evening after we arrived, and visiting Kronosaurus Korner, a fossil information and display centre, the next morning before we moved on. Richmond is sited on what was the floor of an ancient sea, and the flat land around is noted for many fossil finds. Most of the fossils are sea animals, including the Richmond Pliosaur, Australian ichthyosaur and Kronosaurus Queenslandicus. There is also a remarkably well preserved fossil of the Minmi, which must have been washed into the sea after it had died. The fossil even included the skin of the little creature, so they can tell exactly what it looked like. The picture at left shows a recreation of the minmi. Kronosaurus Korner was a very well set up museum, with interesting displays and heaps of information. It certainly justified stopping off in this town in the middle of Queensland.
From Richmond we headed to Hughenden for a couple of nights. The Hughenden area was on the shores of the same ancient sea, and is also rich in fossils. They have claimed the Muttaburrasaurus, first found a couple of hundred kilometres further south at Muttaburra, as their own, and have replicas of both the fossil skeleton and the recreated dinosaur on show in town. The Fossil Corner exhibition wasn't nearly as sophisticated as Kronosaurus Korner in Richmond, but at $5 each we felt we got our money's worth.
Hughenden has put quite a lot of effort into attracting visitors to town and there is quite a bit to see. Apart from 'Mutt' shown above, there are quite a few other sculptures in town, most made from old windmill or tractor parts. Quite a few, but not all, of these have a dinosaur theme. Just south of town there is a small hill (Mt Walker) with lookouts giving a panoramic 360 degree view of the flat plains around the town. We also did a couple of 4-wd 'scenic drives', neither of which was particularly scenic or really needed a 4-wd to complete. However, they gave us another view of this dry pastoral landscape.
Apart from exploring all things dinosaur related, we also spent half a day going to Porcupine Gorge, a deep chasm gouged into the flat plains about 60 km north of Hughenden. The drawback of walking down into a gorge is that the hard bit comes at the end when you have to climb back up again, and with the rather straggly native vegetation not providing much shade it was rather a hot effort, but plenty of water and taking our time allowed us to make it. The creek at the bottom of the gorge is still flowing surprisingly well, given it is still the dry season here, and made a nice place to sit beside and eat the fruit we had brought. The rock formation shown in the photo is known as pyramid rock, for obvious reasons.
Another 250km drive further east brought us to Charters Towers, which started life as a gold rush town in 1872. It is still a prosperous looking service centre for the surrounding pastoral properties, with many lovely old buildings remaining from the gold rush days. We did the history walk around town, the highlight of which would have to be the restored Stock Exchange Arcade. The trading was done from the balcony pictured, with the masses below eagerly bidding up the price of shares in the various 'sure thing' mines on offer. As in other frontier towns, fortunes were made and lost quickly, and there were some interesting stories told on the information panels and displays in the arcade. We also went up the local lookout - more flat plains - and had a game of golf.
No comments:
Post a Comment