Since we only have a 76 ltr fuel tank in the Hilux we would need this extra fuel (an additional 80 lts) to get us through our travels over the next 4-5 days in remote areas where no fuel is available.
We headed out to Lark Quarry Dinosaur Stampede Conservation Park - to be in time for the 10.00 am guided tour. The drive to this site is 110km south-west of Winton, situated in a remote area of "jump-up" country - and we expected it to take us about one & half hours to reach there.
It was a pretty good road for the most part and the travelling was easy - apart for a couple of twits who overtook us on the narrow gravel sections.
Lark Quarry is home to the worlds only recorded evidence of a dinosaur stampede and it is well worth a visit.
Our tour guide presented a very interesting talk about the history of this national monument and the efforts to preserve it.
More than 95 million years old, there are 3300 fossilised stampeding dinosaur footprints immortalised in stone.
The trackways tell the story of hundreds of Coelurosaurs and Ornithopods that fled along a muddy shore
to escape the jaws of a huge and hungry Carnosaur.
A moment in time that has been preserved forever and it is very surreal to be viewing the evidence of an event that occurred millions of years ago.
This site apparently inspired the stampede scene in Spelberg's movie "Jurassic Park".
The building complex is consists of an award winning building that has been architecturally designed to maintain atmospheric balance allowing optimal preservation of the fossilised trackways in an area of massive temperature ranges (e.g. temps can range from 0 - 50 degrees C)
We were then off to Carisbrooke Station for a couple of nights. The road from Lark Quarry to Carisbrooke deteriorated somewhat with the corrugations getting much worse along the way.
When we arrived at Carisbrroke we met one of the owners,Penny, and checked in for a 2x night stay on their property.
We chatted with her about life on the property and schooling of 4x children before they each went off to boarding school in Charters Towers when they were approx 11 & 12 yrs old.
We then made our way onto the property and selected our bush camp site in the dry bed of the dam.
They have not had any rain here for some time.
They have hot showers and toilet facilities over by the old shearing shed - a 10 minute walk from our bush camp.
We gathered firewood from around the bush camp area and we planned a camp oven dinner for tonight.
Ruth had fun with the ute - towing over a log for the fire and also found time to create a bush "dunny" behind the camper - set up with the 'thunderbox' and even a toilet roll holder!!
Cindy had purchased butterfly lamb and this was cooked with vegetables in the camp oven.
This was a scrumptious meal and we ate far too much and enjoyed every mouthful. Tis one will be hard to better!!
We enjoyed a gorgeous stunning outback sunset and spent another evening around the campfire - talking, drinking and star-gazing.
What more could you ask for -
* outback bush camping with a campfire,
* good food,
* a wine or two
* and good company!!!!
Ruth spied two shooting stars to top off the evening!!!
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