The Dinosaur Trail is made up of four communities that have had big breakthroughs proving that dinosaurs lived in Australia! It’s in Queensland and is very popular. On the Dinosaur Trail we saw lots of different things like dinosaur bones, fossil digging sites and petrified wood. There were lots of activities to do and we learnt a lot.
The Age of Dinosaurs
The Age of Dinosaurs was born when a farmer was out looking for his cattle. He came across a rock, but, as a third-generation farmer, he knew it was out of place. He took some pictures of it and sent them to the Queensland museum.
They got back to him later and told him he had found the top half of a dinosaur bone! He got his digger and dug down under it where he found the second half.
After that they started The Age of Dinosaurs to share his discovery and continue looking for more bones. They get heaps of visitors each year and you can see them clean dinosaur bones! If you’re over 12 years old, you can take a ten day course to be able to work there whenever you want on the dinosaur bones!
Dinosaur canyon
Also in Winton, the Dinosaur Canyon has the worlds only evidence of a dinosaur stampede!
The world’s only known Dinosaur Stamepe is right here in Queensland, Australia!
Scientists think that it was caused when a large carnivore came down to the waterhole to find a snack and disturbed over two hundred smaller dinosaurs. They took flight over the mud leaving their footprints behind for us to find 95 million years later!
Looking at the Dinosaur Stampede footprints
Richmond
Richmond was once in the middle of a huge inland sea that took over half of Australia! Because of this they have lots of bones and fossils found in the area that belonged to sea dwelling animals.
We found a fossilised shell!
The most ferocious of these was the Kronosaurus who could basically eat anything, anytime because of its size and strength! We went fossicking for fossils there and found petrified wood, clams and maybe a giant squid!
Searching for million year old fossils
Hughenden
In Hughenden we went to the info centre where they have a huge Muttabuttasaurus skeleton the size of a truck! There was a video you could watch about the layers of the earth that was quite interesting.
The town even has their own theory about how the dinosaurs died out. They think that the herbivores ate all their food and then ran out meaning they started to die off, which means the carnivores who ate the herbivores went hungry and died, meaning there were no more dinos.
Jed and the long dead Muttubuttasaurus
The Dinosaur trail was incredible, and you can learn heaps. I highly recommend it and think it’s good for all ages. Do you want to learn about dinosaurs and have fun at the same time? Well let’s go do it!