Day in Winton

This morning started with a walk of the main street today in Winton. We visited an opal shop that also included a back room with both opal history and memorabilia as well as a big wheelbarrow full of boulder opal offcuts. The girls could buy any two rocks for $10. They all found a nice one each. The owner showed them some tips of what to look for but couldn't find anything better than they found. A good find, girls!
A change of plans had us doing the Age of Dinosaurs tour at 1pm today. The facility was in an amazing location, on top of a jump-up about 20km out of town. There was an impressive view of the countryside from up there. The tour started with a video and an explanation of the different dinosaur bones on display. They had the bones of banjo, a relative of the dinosaur who caused the stampede on display. Our visit also included a tour of their research centre and workshop, where they took us through the process of removing the bones from the ground and then out if the surrounding rock layer. The third part of the tour was a little train/trailer trip out to the newest section where they had another indoor dinosaur stampede encased in mud turned to stone. This one was about 50m long and was painstakingly moved piece by piece from another location to the top of the jump-up. An amazing feat.
Tonight is dinner at the Gregory Hotel. The Gregory is famous for being the first place that Banjo Patterson recited his poem 'Waltzing Matilda'.
After dinner we spent an hour in the outdoor theatre, watching their historical footage of old local ads, news reels, what looked to be one of the first Sylvester and Tweety cartoons and then a couple of slapstick black and white clips from yesteryear. It was a beautiful, calm, starry night and really was a lovely step back in time.Read more