Winton

Winton was a nice, smallish town.  It had a lot of pubs – about 5 I think – for the size of it. And I don’t think I went into one of them!!!  I was a bit peeved off on my last day when I discovered the pub right in the middle of the main street had free caravan park behind it (not happy Jan!!) Oh well.

My first stop was the Waltzing Matilda Museum. Winton was the first place that the song was performed – its understood Banjo Patterson wrote the words on a property not far from town & then a lady he was visiting put it to some music he liked. It was interesting to read about and then the museum had a lot of “olden days” artifacts and some information on the town itself.  From there to the craft shop that also had info (& lifesize replicas) of some dinosaurs. And then from there to the “Opal Walk” – which was boring & very short museum type thing with info in the window.  BUT at the back of that was the jewel in Winton’s crown (as far as I was concerned) with the outdoor cinema.  Just like they have in the movie Australia – outdoors, big screen, projectionists up the back, and those canvas chairs.  Better still, I was told they would be having a show that night.

So I wandered back down there later that evening & for $6.50 I got to sit in a deck chair, under the stars and watch the movies. They didn’t put recent movies on – I asked the lady later on & she said it cost them too much to get a recent release movie – and especially wasn’t worth it for one night.  But they put on the slides that they used to use to advertise things – especially the local business and what’s on around town. Then they had a couple of 16mm films – including a Popeye cartoon!!!  And just like you see on the movies, the film kept stopping and getting stuck & blacking out!! It was great fun and you even got a cuppa & a biscuit afterwards – all great fun. I don’t know why – but the whole thing just tickled my fancy – I really liked this.

Kicking back in the deck chairs at the outdoor movies

The next morning I headed out toward Longreach (road was open again) and stopped about 12kms out of town at the “Australian Age of Dinosaurs” place. Once again the scenery was amazing – and especially at this place – as it was on top of a “jump up” – a flat topped hill that comes out of the middle of a big flat plain – its weird type country – there’s no rhyme or reason why one “jumps up” in the middle of the flat – but it does. And then when you get up on them they’re not just big, flat plains on top – this one had a big gully in it and different trees and rocks etc.

So – I arrived just in time for the 9am guided tour – thankfully as the next one wasn’t until 11 and there’s nothing else to do between them!!  Our tour guide – George – was like a human version of a, very  Thunderbird character – he was a lanky Qlder – but very excited by his work, very animated & very demonstrative with his gestures, etc.  It was great to see someone enjoying their job so much.

What George showed us and told us about was really amazing too. Winton is true dinosaur country apparently.  This is where “Elliott” was found – apparently the biggest dinosaur ever discovered in Australia – even though all they have found of him seems to be a thigh bone – they got enough from that to work out what he was & how big he was.  They are finding more & more bones around this site and also about 110km from Winton at a place called Lark Quarry.  So, dinosaurs is big business in this area.

Real dinosaur bones - from real dinosaurs!

So, from here it was back on the road and off to Longreach.