Winter Holiday July 2012: LONGREACH TO WINTON

Drove the 180km from Longreach to Winton with no hassle.   At Winton we stayed in a free camp called Long Waterhole, it was quite good with plenty of room.   There were no facilities but water and a dump point were available in Winton which was only 3km away.   We stayed 3 days.
On the first day we set up and then went into town to get some water and sus the place out.
The second day we set up the ozpig to cook tea then went into the Winton to the Waltzing Matilda Centre where we purchased a Gold Pass that paid for entry into the Matilda Centre, Australian Age of Dinosaurs Preparation Facility, Lark Quarry Dinosaur Trackways, an open air theatre and a rock and fossil museum.
We went through the Matilda Centre which was very well presented with an audio presentation of Waltzing Matilda and then many sections of the museum for example one section on different artists who have sung the song, a video showing different famous Australian people talking about their life.
A video presentation on the history of Winton and a large museum showing all aspects of earlier times, it even had an old steam train and carriages that you could walk into.     We think this was very interesting although we generally are not museum people.     We then went on to the other open air theatre and mineral/fossil museum which were mediocre.     Then went to see Arno's wall, which is a wall constructed out of residue from his opal mine with all sorts of things cemented into it, eg. typewriters, old machinery parts, a sewing machine, microwave and even a full motorbike.
Then went on to the musical fence, which is a wire fence strung up to have the sounds of a string instrument when hit with pipe, there was also a few percussion things there made from old gas cylinders, drums and all sorts of old metal objects that could be played.
The next day we went out to the Dinosaur Preparation Facility which was 9 km back towards Longreach and 11km of dirt road from there.    It was situated on top of what they call a jump up which is a flat topped mountain.    This is a quite new facility where they use like a dentist drill to remove the stone from the dinosaur bones that they find in the area.    They have found many different species of dinosaur and many bones that need to be fitted together like a jigsaw. Anyone is able to do this work as well as go out in the field to dig up bones asvolunteers for a small fee for your upkeep while you stay on the premises
The presentations made by the young men who are all volunteers was very informative and you could tell they were very interested in their work
The next morning we headed off towards Boulia as we were told the scenery was to die for.