Enjoy a hunt for fossils

Become an amateur palaeontologist on a fun family expedition as you follow Outback Queensland’s Dinosaur Trail, writes Narelle Bouveng

Our date with dinosaurs begins in Winton, 1230km northwest of Toowoomba, in central west Queensland. Regarded as Australia’s capital of dinosaurs and considered by scientists as Australia’s most important area for collecting fossils, it was here in 1999 that grazier David Elliott found part of a giant fossilised femur on his property. It belonged to a Cretaceous sauropod and heralded a dinosaur rush of sorts.

Fossils unearthed across multiple bush backyards included the world’s only evidence of a dinosaur stampede at Lark Quarry Conservation Park, 110km from Winton, which went on to inspire a scene in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park.

We learn this and more at Australian Age of Dinosaurs, a museum pioneered by David who, alongside a team of passionate palaeontologists and volunteer dinosaur enthusiasts, has collected some of Australia’s largest fossils. Our own adventure begins in the Fossil Preparation

Laboratory where technicians etch millions of years of dirt from bones to piece together Australia’s prehistoric puzzle.

Later, in the Collection Room, we meet Banjo, a theropod and the most complete carnivorous dinosaur skeleton found in Australia, and Matilda, the best-preserved sauropod. But it’s two full-sized replica sauropods towering beside the most recent exhibit, a preserved sauropod track called The March of the Titanosaurs, that leaves us feeling dwarfed and bewitched to think these giants once roamed our backyard.

More evidence is uncovered as we step further into Queensland’s land before time while driving the easy 215km to Hughenden.

At the Flinders Discovery Centre we learn that the region sat on the shoreline of a series of ancient inland seas. It’s here we meet Hughie, a handsome 7m-long and almost 4m-tall muttaburrasaurus found in 1963 by grazier Doug Langdon in nearby Muttaburra.

TheEromangaNatural HistoryMuseum,and bottom,marinepredatorsat theKronosaurusKorner.

Pictures:TourismandEvents

Queensland

With marine fossils aplenty turning up all over Hughenden, we try our luck along the banks of Flinders River, finding bullet-like belemnites that we later discover were a relative of the squid and a favourite food for monstrous marine creatures, which thrills my dinophile daughter.

On learning one of the fiercest of all marine predators was found less than two hours away in Richmond, we make our way to the third town sitting within Queensland’s Dinosaur Triangle, where a replica pliosaur guards the entrance of Kronosaurus Korner. But it’s not until we watch an animated film on the museum’s self-guided tour that we see just how spine-chillingly fearsome these 20-tonne kronosaurus with 30cm teeth truly were.

My daughter immediately develops ambitions to find one after touring the other marine exhibits, so with fossil permit and digging tools in hand, we fossick across two public dig sites. It’s dusty, dirty work (the kind kids adore) and while we didn’t turn up a kronosaurus, the centre’s palaeontologist dates the small fossils we collect as from the same era, which is almost as thrilling as learning we can take home our multimillionyear-old-fossil finds. Coolest souvenirs ever, surely.