Winton (one day early)

From Barcky we headed further inland – to Longreach, our QANTAS destination. This made us so close to the last of the dinosaur destinations, Winton, which was less than 2 hour’s drive further. The plan was to spend some time in Longreach and then drive out to Winton, but the first morning I woke up to rain and wind. LOTS of wind and quite some rain! This was wonderful for the town (it being in severe drought conditions) but not so good for someone who wanted to walk outside on a wing of an aeroplane. Even the weather gods conspire to prevent us sticking to any sort of plan!

So we were off on a day trip to Winton instead. We started with a visit to the Australian Age of Dinosaurs attraction on the way into town. We had a tour of the facility, got to see the skeletons they have unearthed so far, and even got to see them working at uncovering more of the skeletons. Truly fascinating stuff!

We then headed into town and stopped by the musical fence to bash out a tune or two. They’ve strung and tuned a fence so you can use it like an enormous instrument, and made all sorts of other instruments out of assorted recycled trash.

Last call for the day was the Information Centre to learn all about Banjo Patterson and how he wrote ‘Waltzing Matilda’ in Winton. It was incredibly extensive, with dioramas and theatres and dinosaur footprints and heritage museums. You could easily spend most of a day there. A couple of hours was enough for us as we didn’t want to contribute to any more road kill and wanted to be home before it got dark.