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| Christina at entrance to Kronosaurus Korner |
Welcome to Australia's Dinosaur Trail
Hundreds of millions of years ago, dinosaurs, fish,
turtles, and other sea creatures lived in the western region of Queensland.
Ever since humans inhabited the area, they have been finding fossilised
evidence to prove it; tiny fossilised teeth from small fish species and huge
heads, backbones, tails and limbs that once propelled gigantic sea-dwelling
swimmers through the ancient waterways.
Most of the ancient species have become extinct, but
a handful has evolved into more modern animals.
This cornucopia of ancient plant and animal life has
sprung into a much needed tourist attraction in numerous regional towns
included within a triangular dinosaur trail between Richmond, Hughenden and
Winton. Traditionally sheep and cattle country, these regions have undergone a lengthy drought and rely on alternative forms of income to survive ... enter fossil tourism.
Our interest in staying overnight at Richmond was to
visit the local dinosaur display called, Kronosauras Korner, a museum of fossil
remains. At Kronosaurus we saw the complete fossilised bone remains of several
different dinosaurs and various other smaller creatures.
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| Overhead projection of dinosaur |
The road between Mount Isa and Richmond is
bituminised (asphalt for Canadians), but isn’t in good repair so our caravan
bobbed up and down for much of the journey and I had to travel slowly quite
often to make sure our foodstuffs and cupboard contents didn’t get scrambled or
worse still, spread all throughout the caravan.
Richmond has a large caravan parking area for
overnight stayers. The photo herein shows how popular it is at this time of
year because it’s free. It just needs a toilet block to be perfect.
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| Richmond's free caravan park |
After spending some time at Richmond, we headed east
towards Charters Towers and 60 km short of our destination decided to do
another free camp at a roadside stop (this one with a toilet) called Reid River
rest area.
As it was Sunday, we couldn’t see any reason to continue to Charters
Towers when nothing would be open.
We pulled out our camp chairs and sat around
reading until dinner time, watched television for an hour or two and went to
bed.
Ah, the life of a frequent traveller.
Robin
