On and on

From Carnarvon Gorge I headed to Sapphire, with a stop overnight at Springsure, under an awe inspiring sandstone bluff which is floodlit at nite.  For some reason my GPS seems to think I prefer gravel roads, for it not only took me along one, but led me up the garden path to Mt. Ogg station, a dead end, and then got lost itself!  Getting dark, cows & roos sharing the road and the petrol gauge dropping like a rock, but fortunately the GPS got itself oriented again & got me out, an hour late but I filled with petrol in Rolleston and continued to Springsure (and on to Sapphire the next day).

Sapphire is a very interesting place in the gem fields, with Rubyvale just up the road.  A lot of sapphire mining and very interesting sapphires as well, but no rubies.  Sapphires come in a range of colours with orange being the most rare and yellow next.  A fossiker camped at the rest area took great delight in telling me all about it, as well as his life story - I gather it can get lonely out on the diggings, esp since there are enough paranoid fossikers with guns to pretty well prevent a lot of wandering onto neighboring claims!

Sapphires are spewed up by volcanoes, erosion then deposits them in streams which eventually get buried themselves, so the miners dig down until they hit the 'wash' layer which is the sapphire bearing belt.  They mine this, then screen & wash it to find the sapphires.  There is also topaz & zircon.  Said chap had an orange sapphire, 3 carat polished, which he told me was worth $900.  If it were cut it would yield a 1 carat gem worth the same price.  He intends to keep it and have it mounted in a ring for himself.

 Longreach was the next stop, with the Stockman's Hall of Fame firmly on the agenda, and an informative & interesting place it is!  They have a show they put on also, which is very enjoyable. 

The Qantas Museum was also visited with the tour of the Super Jumbo quite interesting and informative. 

Spinifex and Dinosaurs!

Moving on from Longreach to Winton, and the change in the vegetation is quite marked:  From rough grazing to what appears natural bush and it looks drier.  Winton is a jewel in the Outback, being well set up for tourists and having some very interesting attractions.  The main draw for me was the home of 'Waltzing Matilda' but the dinosaur discoveries were also unique as it is the only place in the world where they have footprints of what is termed 'The Dinosaur Stampede'.  An incredible sequence of circumstances resulted in this rather amazing feature.  First, was a mud flat just the right texture to capture the tracks, being located next to a creek where critters went to drink.  Then, while a lot of smaller dinosaurs were having a drink, a T. rex equivalent runs out of the bush for dinner.  The smaller dinosaurs run everywhere, leaving plenty of footprints, plus Rex's prints are very well captured.  Then just the right type of flooding to not wash the prints away yet cover them with silt happened, eventually deposits covering them to at least 70m which was then washed away again (its only took 100million years).  They were discovered but not recognised for what they were for a few years, then the penny dropped and preservation of the area of footprints undertaken.  Now there is much effort into finding and re-assembling dinosaur bones.

They are the only sequence of prints of moving dinosaurs on earth, and were studied by the animators of Jurassic Park to make their models move as they would have 100 million years ago.  They have subsequently discovered a lot of dinosaur remains in the area, many new species:  Apparently Australia was thought to have had very few dinosaurs but they now know there were a great deal of them here.  There are also many fossils of ferns, redwoods and Australian pines (araucaria).  A totally amazing and unique experience!

The Waltzing Matilda Centre is a Must See and is certainly very well done.  It goes thru the history of the song and I certainly learned much from it:  It's origins are actually Teutonic, I'd tell you more but that would ruin your visit there.  It is an iconic song to say the least.

There are also boulder opals found in the region,  while the re are very good ones to be found, most are rather ordinary:  As the Park Ranger stated, "No one I ever heard of got rich opal mining in the area.".

Not far from the Dinosaur Stampede (well, only about 70km) is Old Cork Station on the Diamantina River, so I headed off there as well - all gravel road and all pretty bumpy.  I found the River but never did find the Station House, tho only a few km from it.  I took the River Road back, not a wise move as it turned out.  That country is flat as, so any slight dip soon becomes a rather good waterflow in the rains:  Driving along at 70-80 km/hr and you suddenly dip slightly BUT in the recent floods the bottom of that dip is scoured out, causing some interesting and unique waltzes of the van!  While the song goes "...for the rain never falls on the dusty Diamantina...", it's pretty well true because the region was dry as and very dusty too:  The recent rain (probably a 1 in 100 year event) was the exception, and that only to prepare the crossings to add interest to my trip.  I might add the weather is clear, sunny and warm.

The campsite by the Long Waterhole was enjoyed for the nites in Winton, and that's it for now - time to move on again.  Rather a long blog but I've discovered I need to allow extra time in my trips for actual travel time and for collating facts, photos etc.

Qwik update as I sit in the waiting room of Barr's Tyres in Charters Towers.  On the way up from Winton a front tyre blew.  I was going to replace them when I got back to Brisbane but not really comfortable about driving all that way with no spare, given the other front tyre is well worn also.  It is amazing how many discarded tyres & tyre bits are along the highway - I  noticed every one of them!  Just to keep my paranoia up, when I went to start the vaan this morning the battery was dead.  I organised with a neighbor to charge it but it seemed fully charged, so to the obvious, and Yes, the terminals were dirty!  Should be off soon to Townsville and lunch with a Tassie mate who is there at the moment.  Tonight I'll free camp just out of Charters Towers.

Cheers all!