Megafauna bone-anza
Push for fossils to put Darling Downs town on the tourist map
Photo: Bev Lacey
SINCE the age of six, Ian Sobbe has been finding pieces of bone and teeth in the black, fertile soil outside Clifton.
Once, Mr Sobbe would take bits of fossilized bone and tooth into school for show and tell.
Now, a few decades removed from his schoolboy days, he is heading a community push to establish a world-class megafauna museum in Clifton.
The area has been known for its megafauna fossils since the time of the early explorers.
The fossils provide a window into a world some 80-120,000 years ago, where the giant ancestors of modern vertebrates stalked the earth.
“Every small town is looking for some reason to put itself on the map, to give itself some sort of tourist destination profile,” Mr Sobbe said.
“So the community then has thought... let’s see if we can’t use that as an educational resource and a tourism resource for Clifton.”
With the ability to draw domestic tourists due to its relative proximity to coastal cities, and the potential for international tourism thanks to the Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport, Clifton was ideally located to draw on a wide spectrum of travellers, Mr Sobbe said.
And he and the group he chairs - the Clifton Megafauna Group - are thinking big.
“If you want to do something that is world class, I think you’re going to have to spend between $5 to 7 million,” he said.
The group’s dream facility would include the museum and exhibition, along with educational areas with hands-on activities like fossil digs, arts and craft, tourist information centre and coffee shop.
“And I think, within that, you’ve got to have really iconic, eye-catching displays,” Mr Sobbe said.
That wouldn’t come without some serious grant money though, which the group has started lobbying for.
Mr Sobbe pointed to technology like 3D holographic displays, alongside interpretive exhibits, that would be needed to give people a sense of what life was like hundreds of thousands of years ago on the Darling Downs.
The group hosted a meeting last week to explain their idea to the wider Clifton community. It was attended by councillors, Mayor Paul Antonio, and Condamine MP Pat Weir.