Sunday, August 7, 2016

Lava tubes Matilda

Journal,
I'm back! Really, it's only a few hours later. I'd better explain the situation. We left John's yesterday, and now we're at Undara, camping. Fires are allowed!!!We just went to the lava tubes, and that, journal, is the subject of this entry. after a shortdrive to the boardwalk, we walked until we finally came to our first standing lava tube. It was too unstable to go inside, but we stared into the mouth of the tube and saw the gaping rockfilled cavity that was the lava tube. The rest of it was basically climbing down steep rocky entrance and watching our step so that we didn't fall into the holes that dotted the silt cave floors. It was A-MAZING!!!!


Dinosaurs Matilda

The next posts will be entries from my journal.

Journal,

I'm sitting here on John's couch, writing. We're back from watching Stephen training his dogs. He's an amazing welder and welds brands. My favourite brand was one of a devil for the local football team. He's also a fantastic dog trainer. He's got 10 dogs: Benji, Shell, Jilly, Blondie, Omo, Herbie, Tiger and some others, whose names escape me. We watched the dogs rounding up sheep into a pen. It was incredible. Earlier in the day we went to the Dinosaur Stampede Monument. It was a follow-up from the previous day's dino activities. Maybe I should explain that first.
Yesterday we went on a tour of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum. We were taken into a room, where a series of videos were shown about AAoDM and the dinosaurs themselves: Matilda, Banjo and Elliot. I've recreated one of them to show you: Matilda and Banjo.

MOST PHOTOS OFF THE INTERNET. MANY ARE NOT MINE. PLEASE INFORM OF ANY COPYRIGHT ISSUES AND SHALL DELETE VIDEO.


So now I shall tell you the story.
Matilda:
Scientific name: Diamantinasaurus matildae
Type: Sauropod
Description: A massive, herbivorous sauropod, Matilda was 2.5 metres tall from the hip and 15-18 metres long.
Skeleton: 40% (extremely complete) MOST COMPLETE SAUROPOD IN AUSTRALIA.

Banjo:
Scientific name: Australo venator wintonensis
Type: Theropod
Description: Banjo, a carnivorous monster, was armed with massive claws and stood 1.6 m tall at the hip and 5m long.
Skeleton: 35% (incredibly complete) MOST COMPLETE THEROPOD SKELETON IN AUSTRALIA

The Banjo and Matilda story

Once, around 90,000,000 years ago, there were two dinosaurs: Banjo, a therapod and old Matilda, a sauropod. Matilda had been for a drink at the waterhole, wading into the mud. But Matilda was old and frail, and this time as she sunk into the mud, she couldn't get out. She was stuck and knew she would die. Then Banjo came along, spying the sauropod and hoping for a quick, easy dinner. That dinner cost him his life.  Seeing the predator, Matilda lashed out with her tail, knocking Banjo dead. In this way, their skeletons were found on top of each other millions of years later.

So, just to say, previously I was sitting on the couch, waiting to go to the musical fence and now I'm sitting at the camp table, 2 days later.  Anyhow, the dinosaurs I was talking about earlier was the dinosaur stampede monument. We had another tour, and the audio visual part told us about the stampede:
A herd of ornithopods
A herd of coelurosaurs
And......

ONE MASSIVE, CARNIVOROUS THERAPOD!!

The chase that ensues is the only known evidence of a dinosaur stampede IN THE WORLD!!! So the footprints were unveiled...


The theropod leapt out, taking massive strides towards his prey... but wait! Is his speed increasing? Yes it sure is. He's locked onto prey, and he's kicking up more mud than before. His prey is concentrating on getting to the lush vegetation that was Winton 90,000,000 years ago and changes direction. The predator spins and changes direction himself. It's the classic predator vs. prey. Who will win? And there the fossils end: the mystery still not solved.
So, I was saying something about a musical fence, wasn't I? Well, the musical fence is a unique instrument in the middle of outback QLD. It consists of percussion kits made of everyday household junk and five fence strings which can play different notes. Sadly, the metal poles for playing the fence were missing, but we still had heaps of fun playing on the drum kits.







Dinosaur Museum/ Winton Reuben

Matilda's Bones
We went to a dinosaur museum in Winton. We went on two tours. The first one had dinosaurs which were call Banjo, Elliot and Matilda. We saw the bones and Matilda and Banjo's were found on top of each other. The tour guide showed us some videos. Do you know why the dinosaur was called Elliot? It was because David Elliot found it.
Matilda's Bones
Banjo's Bones
We went on another tour and got to touch fossils.

We went to another dinosaur museum called the dinosaur stampede. It has the only evidence of a dinosaur stampede in the world. We found out some new dinosaur's names:
Coelurosaurus, a chicken-like dinosaur
Ornithopod, which could be as big as an emu
Therapod, a dinosaur which is as big as a horse and whose footprints are as big as a large cassowary.



Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Seaforth Matilda

After a drive, we set up camp in the Seaforth Camping Ground. There was a playground just down the road from our campsite, but it was infested with green ants and we couldn’t play on the main playground. We did lots of swimming inside the stinger nets and had heaps of fun at the beach catching hermit crabs and then letting them go again.


WHERE?
Seaforth is very close to Mackay.
WHEN?
We stayed there for 6 days, arriving on Wednesday 20 July, 2016.

Where and when

Day
Date
Where
Thursday
28
Winks and Theresa
Wednesday
27
Airlie Beach
Tuesday
26
Airlie Beach
Monday
25
Seaforth
Sunday
24
Seaforth
Saturday
23
Seaforth
Friday
22
Seaforth
Thursday
21
Seaforth
Wednesday
20
Seaforth

Cape Hillsborough


We went for a walk at the Cape Hillsborough and had lots of fun on our walk. There were very informative signs which told us about Indigenous Australians and different kinds of ecosystems and biodiversity. The latter posed many deep questions such as:
How might mangrove forests cope with climate change?
What will happen to the forests around you in the future?

We had another adventure at Cape Hillsborough by meeting Mum’s friend Holly and her two daughters Layla and Bridie for a picnic dinner. We had sausages and made friends.


Seaforth Camping Ground


I was playing on the park on our last full day of our stay at Seaforth when a girl called out to me. At the time, I had no idea that she was the sister of Lewis and Reuben’s newest friend. However, she was and when I met her again later, all was revealed. Her name was Ashlia and her brother’s name was Riley. We played together on the playground for a bit, chatting and telling each other about ourselves. We really were friends.
After we had gone back to our separate campsites, we met again and played, along with Riley again. This time, we played a game which involved going down slides backwards and sending Shopkins down the slides for the other person to catch. Afterwards, we went for a swim. I had stinging pains just about everywhere on me, so I left the water early and started to play on the swings.


Slade Point

The day after meeting Holly at Cape Hillsborough, we met Layla, Bridie and Holly again, this time at a beautiful beach called Slade Point. We played touch footy on the sand before retreating to the playground to keep cool. The wonderful morning was topped off by hot chips and calamari for lunch.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Dreamtime Cultural Centre Rockhampton

the Indigenous cultural centre Rockhampton!!!

       while we were in Rockhampton we went to a place called the Indigenous cultural centre Rockhampton. Dads friend works there and his name was Bob. we were the first people there so while Mum and Dad talked to Bob we went to watch a  movie. it was all about Torres strait islanders and there doings. soon the visitors came pilling in so we went out.then all of us went on a tour with a man called Wade.we went through the ted Mitchell gallery were he told us a story. this was after the huge rain. then we went to a cave and Wade played the diggeri-doa for a while then we through a Boomerang i through it first but our Dad through it the best. finally a woman called grace talked about the Torres strait islanders.then we had morning tea witch i had 1 kirks can 2 pikelets and 1 scone

Geocaching by Reuben

We went Geocaching  and I swapped a 5c piece for an  interesting shell .
The cache was small .
We did another Geocache and It was well camaflaged .
We are in a hotel at Airlie Beach.
At first I thought it was a cabin then I looked at the what to do book and I saw the word hotel so It was a hotel.  I sleep with my brother (Lewis).We watched the cricket. It was day one of the first test of Australia touring Sri Lanka.  It was on the JAT.  Sri Lanka scored 117 runs and Australia scored 66 /2.  It rained most of the afternoon, Burns scored 3 and Smith and Kawaja made a fifty partnership.

I also went for a geocache at Red Cliff Island while I was camping at Seaforth.  I caught about fifty hermit crabs while I was at Seaforth.  I found a hermit crab that looked like Cranky Crab.  I also saw a lizard that looked like Iggie Iguana!  I was camping at Seaforth for about a week.  We went for a walk to Airlie Beach Lagoon and I had an icy pole and bought some books.  I'm probably going to watch the cricket again today.