Adels Grove is set amongst a plantation of exotic trees initially grown by the French botanist Albert De Lestang over 80 years ago - who took up the property as an experimental Botanical Garden. The name of the property hence arose from the initials of his name "Adel".
We said goodbye to Adels Grove this morning - setting off around 8.00 am for the drive south to Mt Isa via the Riversleigh World Heritage Fossil Mammal site - located in the south east corner of Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) NP.
The drive was on a reasonable dirt road presenting us with our first water crossings of the trip - crossing the Gregory River several times. These were happily not too deep or challenging although one was quite quick flowing.
We even saw a "bike tree" on this road (unfortunately no photo) - a tree along the side of the road that had been decorated with many different sized bicycles - it must have had roughly 15 bikes hanging off branches as high as 30 - 40 ft high. Quite a sight to see!!!
The Uni of NSW has annual digs at the Riversleigh site and many fossils including meat eating
kangaroos, giant wombats, birds crocodiles and bats have been found here.
The Riversleigh D Site is the only part of the site open to the public and offers an information shelter and and interpretive walk explaining the significance of the Riversleigh Fossil fields which date back 15 - 20 million years ago.
This is the view from the top of the walk
- Looking back down to our rig below
- the surrounding country side
The "Big Bird"
This huge leg bone below belongs to a huge flightless bird known as Thunderbirds - which stood 2.5m tall and weighed in at 250 - 300 kg
A mass of small rounded pebbles known as "gizzard stones" are found next to the limb bone - these are believed to have been swallowed to help grind food for digestionthe same way that chickens do using sand-sized pebbles.
Concave bones of a Turtle shell
A reconstruction of some of the fossil bones located at this site.
After lunch we turned east on the Barkley Highway heading for Mt Isa.
Unfortunately we also had our first flat tyre today - noticed when we pulled up just out of Mt Isa and we had to replace the tyre. This was our first downpoint of the trip - having to change a flat tyre, then having to find somewhere to look at it for us and staying overnight in the "Isa" at a cramped caravan park right on a busy road- with road trains passing all night. We were pretty tired though and did sleep soundly.
Posted via DraftCraft app
No comments:
Post a Comment