Winton QLD

Headed for Winton this morning, home of Dinosaurs. Very small town but as usual very friendly. Went to the Matilda Centre a couple of days after it had the opening to replace the one that burnt down a couple of years back. The place is full of Australian history. The centre has an interactive audio system with headphones, we think it needs a little work but was very informative. While we were there we inquired as to what was happening for Anzac Day. The guy who works at the centre was helping organise the Dawn service and the March and filled us in.
We woke early as the Dinosaur Stampede was approximately 200km round trip. Not the cheapest but it is another one off the bucket list. It was discovered on a property of a local farmer. An expert was called in and declared that they were in fact small dinosaur tracks made by dinosaurs called Skartopus and Wintonopus. Further removal of silt and rock more tracks were found made buy a much larger Theropod called Australovenator. Due to the nature of the tracks it is thought that the larger one decided to hunt the smaller ones and panic took over with the small ones scattering in all directions. All this happened 95 million years ago.
Again woke early, this time for the Dawn service. Small gathering but well done. Cenotaph, BBQ breakfast, parade, laying of wreaths at the pool and memorial park as well as the cemetery, then on to the Winton Club for a drink and some two up. The women of Winton out did themselves, everybody who could knit or crotchet made woolen poppies, they lost count but it is estimated they made 11,000 of them. They adorned the Cenotaph, the memorial pool and the memorial in the park as well as a fence at the cemetery, around the fifteen trees lining the driveway and a basket full for anyone who wanted to place one on a grave.
We had to cut short the Anzac things that were happening as this was also the last day we had to go to the Age of Dinosaurs Museum. What an eye opener!! The museum was divided into three sections each with a guided tour. The first was how they preserved the bones they had found before they start to chisel and clean the rock and dirt from each fossil, all this work is done by staff and volunteers. The second section was a visual display to show how they discovered some of the specimens. The third part was a bus ride out to a replica of bronze dinosaurs in there natural environment and cast bones as they were found in the ground. Would definitely recommend it.
When we got back to Winton we checked out the pubs to see what was going down, to no avail let's just say nothing. Off to the Winton Club, here were the boys who were special guests at the dawn service. It was not long before the Navy guy came over to the bar and bugger me if it wasn't Luke who gave us the info for Anzac Day. He encouraged us to join his group for a beer or four. Great time with dinosaurs, great time with the guys.