Isabel's Adventures: Wednesday 3rd June

Wednesday 3^rd June

On Wednesday we went to the age of Dinosaurs museum. At the age of Dinosaurs museum we got to go on 2 tours. The first tour was a tour around the lab. A lab is where they separate the fossil from their surrounding rock. The 2nd tour was scary because there is a dinosaur called Banjo and in 1 video Banjo looks like he is going to eat you.

These are giant mussels.

This a nautilus shell and an Ammonite.

This is the scary video.

These are banjo bones.

This is somewhere in the Information centre where they make a show about Waltzing Matilda.

Mum's note:
We had a massive day today. The Age of Dinosaurs is about 20km out of Winton. We learned about how Elliot the gigantic sauropod, Banjo (Australovenator wintonensis) and Matilda (Diamantinasaurus matildae) were discovered.

Matilda's foot bones.

Caleb had the whole room in fits of laughter in the second tour after a warning that some kids might find the animation of Banjo to be scary. "I won't!" says Caleb. "Because he's dead!"

Caleb inspecting Banjo's claws after the tours.

We learned about black-soil, also known as self-mulching soil, and how stones and fossils naturally rise to the surface through this soil. We saw fossils wrapped in plaster layers from fossil digs and saw volunteers using tools to remove rock from fossils.

Fossil bones in storage waiting for processing.
Apparently Isabel has time to grow up, get a degree and a PhD, and some will still be waiting for her!
And they are still digging them up.....

Our tour guide demonstrating the use of tools to extract fossils from surrounding rock.

We had lunch looking out over the view from the mesa where the Age of Dinosaurs has been built.

The view from the Age of Dinosaurs mesa.

At the Age of Dinosaurs we also saw lots of other fascinating fossils, and also several pieces of meteorite (replicas actually, for now) that were found by the Founder of the Age of Dinosaurs. Mr Elliot, a Winton local and by all accounts, a pretty impressive individual, found the meteorite pieces in 2006 after talking to eyewitnesses about its spectacular arrival in 2004.

Impressive crab fossils.

If all that wasn't enough, we then returned to Winton and did the Waltzing Matilda Centre. Winton claims to be the birthplace of one of Australia's most iconic songs and also Qantas.

Statue of Banjo Paterson in the main street.

In the Waltzing Matilda Centre we also saw replicas of the dinosaur footprints at Larks Quarry (which is currently closed, so we couldn't visit the real thing), and lots of other interesting things such as a incomplete boomerang still attached to the remains of a tree and a Furphy's Farm Water Cart (the origins of the Australian slang word "furphy - a untrue rumour or improbable story claimed as fact", and

Replica of footprints from Larks Quarry.

Boomerang tree.

Furphy's Farm Water Cart

And then, as if that still wasn't enough..... we went then to the Corfield & Fitzmaurice Building across the road and saw the dinosaur diorama, some pieces of rock with actual dinosaur footprints in them (FINALLY!! yay!) and were also introduced to boulder opal.