Plans blown apart

I am so sorry, that I haven't blogged for a few days. I was doing so well and then we got to Winton and lost all internet connection for a couple of days.  Well actually we were staying on a cattle station and had no phone contact either.  We had a wonderful time there, then moved on to Isisford where we stayed at Clancy's Hotel. The hotel was built in the late 1800's and had the sagging feeling you get in really old buildings. I had to walk uphill to my room! But no room to even put the laptop on my knee, so couldn't blog there either.
We moved on to Augathella and it was the All Blacks final match for the World cup, so once again no blog.  We travelled to Roma and it was there that everything fell apart.  Grant's brother, who is managing the motel for them while they are away fell ill and Judith and Grant had to drive home the very next day.
Which left us wondering how to get home and flying was the only reasonable option.  Well, most of you know how I feel about flying!  Anyway, that is just what we did. Hopped on a tiddly plane out of Roma and flew to Brisbane, then caught a Sunair bus up to the Sunshine Coast.
So we were home again.  However, I will still put up some of the photos from our trip as it was just so fantastic. 
Below is part of a blog I had already started about our expedition to dinosaur country.

Thursday 20 October
We were up early this morning as we wanted to walk down the road to watch the Spirit of the Outback go past. This is a train which comes twice a week through Longreach.

Returning to the camp we found some Brolga, which are large storks. We were able to get quite close as they seemed to be quite comfortable having people around.

We headed out of Longreach. More flat roads and not many trees. We stopped at a rest area for a cuppa, but it was quite windy so we didn't stay long.

And found the sign pointing to the Age of Dinosaurs.  Do we have to go up that hill?
Yes we do.

They had a place at the bottom of the hill to park campers and trailers as the road was too steep for them.  But the view from the top was magnificent.  You are looking at what was the dinosaurs garden over a million years ago. 

Of course it was hot.  We had our lunch while we waited for the next tour to start and a cute little bird paid us a visit with his wife to collect tiny insects off the car. This is a red-capped robin, the smallest and most brightly coloured of the red robins.

He was so smart and his little wife was quite plain compared with him.

We took a walk along a track to a lookout point and a goanna crossed our path.  He was not in the least concerned about us and walked just a couple of metres in front of us.  Such beautiful colouring.  His tongue was flicking in and out as he walked, looking for food.

We began our tour around the Age of Dinosaurs. It was a really interesting place to visit as almost every bone they had on display had a corresponding bone from a present day cow or similar so we could compare the sizes. Dinosaurs were massive!!  At the entrance the display showed a leg bone which had been painstakingly pieced together like a 3D bone jigsaw.  The little white bone in front is from a cow.

They told us all about how the bones are getting pushed up through the black soil of the plains, how they found them, how they go about digging them out and then how they encase them in the foil and plaster jackets to protect them from the corrosive effects of moisture and air.

They currently have enough bones in storage to keep them busy for another 26 years!  They are building another facility which will give them better working conditions and enable them to have more workers, but most of the work is voluntary and uses volunteers. Anyone from the age of 12 years and over can volunteer to go on a dig and perhaps find a new dinosaur. 
We walked through the area where they work on the bones. They use very fine equipment, a bit like dentists drills to get the earth and rock off the bones so they can study them in detail.  One of the bones they showed us has been 9 years work!  Can you imagine that?  This is the area of the big tin shed where they do this work. 

We saw the bones of Banjo and Matilda.  Banjo was an Australovenator wintonensis, which is a swift predator with 30 cm claws and flesh slicing teeth, and Matilda which was a Diamantinasaurus matildae which was a herbivorous giant of a sauropod 16 metres long. W O W! (I love the way those names sound, don't you? They just sort of roll off your tongue.)

Here is Banjo.

And here are some of the hind leg and hip bones of Matilda.  If the guide reached his arm above his head, he could scratch her stomach!  She was HUGE.

We treated ourselves to an icecream after the tour as it was so very hot and then made our way back down the hill to Winton.

I had better end this post here.  It has taken me about 4 days to get this one up because the photos wouldn't load properly. I need to find a better way to do this!

Thank you for reading and I will be back soon.

Stay safe. I love you.