An early start to the day saw us make the 110km drive out to the Dinosaur Stampede and Lark Quarry Conservation Park. We took the short spinifex walk just before the 60 minute tour at 10am. Over 3,300 tracks mark the site of the only known dinosaur stampede on the planet 95 million years ago - the area is indoor about the size of a netball court - the tour guide gave a really interesting and dramatic tale of what happened to cause the stampede. It appears a very large dinosaur with 50cm long feet came through and scared a lot of other smaller dinosaurs - the footprints are clearly visible, and quite remarkable.

On the way back we found a great little lookout with a nice breeze (it was about 35 degrees) and stopped for a picnic lunch. Closer to town we dropped into Long Waterhole - lots of water and some swimmers and motor bike riders around - apparently a very popular place for campers in the high season.

We rushed out to Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum for the 2pm tour - the road only reopened today after a few days being closed following lots of recent rain, so we were quite lucky. It has the world's largest collection of dinosaur fossils. The first part of the tour was of 'the collection' showing 2 dinosaurs - Banjo and Matilda and lots of their bones - these 2 were found together on a cattle farm in 2006 with the farmer finding a large thigh bone sticking out of the ground! Banjo is about 3 metres long, while Matilda is estimated to be about 16 metres long and 4 metres high.

The 2nd part of the tour took us to the Laboratory, where paleontologists are actively working through tonnes of potential material that may (or may not) contain more bones - various Winton farmers can excavate and bring in soil - it's wrapped in newspaper and then surrounded by plaster until it's selected for further investigation - they have 15 years worth of material to go through already! It's painstaking work and like putting together a 3D jigsaw puzzle.

After another hot day out, it was great to again visit the local swimming pool for a dip, and the food was so good last night at the pub, that we revisited - Mum and Renee enjoyed salmon and barramundi, while Eamon couldn't go past the schnitzel again and Dad went with the spaghetti marinara.