Night 21 - McKinlay

Left Winton to do a tour at the ‘Age of Dinosaurs’ which was really worth visiting. Our little dinosaur lovers were pretty excited. It has only recently opened and they have plans to expand to include a museum, hotel, campground and restaurant within the next 5 years. Its located on top of a massive ‘jump up’ or mesa plateau. They have discovered dinosaur bones in the area that were covered by floods millions of years ago. They are in the process of digging them up and putting them back together.

Great view from up the top, you cant really see but we are standing on the edge of a cliff in these photos.





The palaeontologists sit there all day scraping the dirt off the bones. Such dedication! Bailey got to hold the claw of Banjo the Raptor and Kai got to hold a rib bone of an unknown dinosaur. Both were pretty thrilled.









After the museum we drove west again, we had lunch at a little rest stop and Craig started chatting to this guy who grew up in Warriewood and knew Craig's uncle. Small world! He ended up giving us lots of tips on intersting places to visit and fuel prices. McKinlay was our next stop, home of Crocodile Dundee’s famous Walkabout Creek Hotel. We stayed here the night out the back at the caravan park which was more like the car park! Of course we had to have a beer and pub meal and took plenty of photos. There is lots of memorabilia inside.

Night 20 - Winton

We really would have liked to have stayed in Longreach another night but it rained which caused thick red mud. It was absolutely awful and it was absolutely everywhere. We stayed in a massive caravan park and we had our own ensuite.....HEAVEN. We had a real sink, shower and toilet!

So in the morning we headed to the Longreach School of Distance Education which was really interesting. They have 168 kids from 120 families spread over 8,000kms. Its amazing how it all works. The boys really enjoyed it as they are currently studying via distance education.



Here is a pic of the boys doing their school work in the van. Its a real struggle to get them to do a bit each day!




After lunch we headed for Winton. The last time we were here we were stuck as the roads were closed due to flooding. Hasn’t changed much, it amazes me that these little towns are so derelict and no one seems to care. We wonder how they manage to stay in business.

We got the last spot at the Pelican Fuel Stop which isn’t allowed to sell fuel anymore! The owner insisted we pay cash ($20 per night). OMG how do I even describe this place? Full of old men who were blind drunk by 2pm. Of course they wanted a chat with Craig who they nick named “Bull”. I told Craig we were not here to make friends!!




I was scared so pretty much slept with one eye open all night. We were outta there first thing in the morning.