Australovenator wintonensis
(a large, long-necked, plant-eating dinosaur), nicknamed ‘Marlin’s Beastie’. The rich fossil finds in the area prompted the Ievers family to champion their vision for Kronosaurus Korner, which has become Australia’s premier marine fossil centre. With support from the local community and council, as well as government funding, the museum opened in 1995. It was originally called the Richmond Marine Fossil Museum, before being later renamed.
On our arrival at the museum, we’re confronted by a huge 11m-long Kronosaurus queenslandicus guarding the entrance. It’s not until we watch an animated film in the museum’s theatre that we understand just how menacing this predatory pliosaur was. The huge marine carnivore lived in the cool waters of the Eromanga Sea, hunting large fish, giant squid, and possibly even large reptiles. As the largest fossil found in Queensland, it’s fitting the centre is named in its honour.
We follow a self-guided audio tour through the exhibits, which feature more than 1200 registered fossils. We’re captivated by stories of how these creatures lived and how their fossils were discovered. Tiah is particularly enthralled to learn about an ichthyosaur fossil nicknamed ‘Wilson’ that was found by seven-year-old Amber Wilson in 2014 at one of the fossil-hunting sites nearby. Amber found a puck-sized vertebrae protruding from a pile of rocks, which turned out to be from a 400kg dolphin-like Platypterygius australis, which lived some 100mya.
Michelle Johnston, Kronosaurus Korner’s curator and interpretation manager, recalls the find as momentous. “Wilson is the most complete ichthyosaur skull in our collection and one of the best found in Australia,” she says. “It’s proof that anyone, even with little to no experience, can find fossils that any palaeontologist would dream about discovering.”
Buoyed by this discovery, we collect our fossil-finding permit and head to one of the two fossil hunting sites located a 20-minute drive away. After a few fun hours of digging, and with a small clutch of interesting bonylooking bits in our collection, we return to Kronosaurus Korner where a palaeontologist looks over our finds.
“…anyone...can find fossils that any palaeontologist would dream about discovering.”
Tiah’s first piece is identified as a fossil of an Aucellina hughendenensis, a type of clam common to the region. She’s also found a few more belemnites, so is thrilled. My find is a bit more intriguing, or so I think. It’s a rounded knuckle-like bone that I’m convinced is something remarkable. It turns out to be from a kangaroo. “One hundred million years too late, Mum,” my now fossil expert daughter quips.
BECAUSE IT WAS once covered by water, Richmond is an ideal place to find fossils of creatures that were preserved in the thick sludgy base of the prehistoric sea, especially during its final inundation some 105mya. However, Winton, a three-hour drive south, is home to Australia’s most important area for collecting fossils: the Winton Formation.
Magnificent examples include the most complete fossilised remains of a theropod (a carnivorous dinosaur that walked on two legs) found in Australia, belonging to the species Australovenator wintonensis, and the most complete sauropod (large, long-necked, herbivorous dinosaur) ever found here, a representative of the species Diamantinasaurus matildae. Two sets of multiple dinosaur footprints have been recovered across two different sites, and other fossilised freshwater creatures from the Cretaceous, including lungfish, turtles and crocodiles, have also been discovered. Exceptionally preserved examples of insect and flora imprint fossils found here provide evidence of the time flowering plants first emerged in Australia.
My family and I don’t visit Winton on this journey, but it would be easy to add it as a side trip, particularly if you follow the Australian Dinosaur Trail, a tourist driving route that links Hughenden, Richmond and Winton. Instead, we
Idyllic free camping spots are splayed along the peninsula overlooking the waterway.
continue along the Overlanders Way to Julia Creek, about 150km west of Richmond. There we soak in the sublime artesian baths at the Julia Creek Caravan Park. The water is rich in reportedly naturally healing minerals, including sulfur, calcium and magnesium, and its warmth soothes our shoulders, sore after an afternoon of digging for dinosaurs. The soak does wonders for our souls too. We enjoy the last bath session of the day, which means we can, at the same time, watch the setting sun sink into the riparian grasslands of the Mitchell Grass Downs. After the sun disappears, we enjoy the big outback sky’s spectacular colour changes as dusk sets in and the first stars appear overhead.
The Mitchell Grass Downs, a vast, mostly treeless expanse, is home to the adorable Julia Creek dunnart, a tiny carnivorous marsupial threatened by feral cats. We delight in joining a dunnart feeding session at the Julia Creek Visitor Information Centre’s Beneath the Creek facility. Here, interactive displays and daily feeding sessions help raise awareness for the plight of this struggling nocturnal marsupial.
From Julia Creek, we continue along the Overlanders Way to Cloncurry, where we visit the Cloncurry Unearthed Visitor Information Centre and Museum. The stop provides a fascinating diversion from dinosaurs, offering us a chance to peer into the region’s rich geological past while poring over Australia’s most comprehensive collection of gems and minerals. A further 45 minutes down the highway, Clem Walton Park is located on the Corella River, at the Corella Dam, which was constructed to service the water needs of nearby Mary Kathleen Mine. It’s a stunning place to stop for the night. Idyllic free camping spots are splayed along the peninsula, overlooking the beautiful waterway where fishing and boating are encouraged.
From Clem Walton Park, the flaming red beauty of the Selwyn Range is in magnificent view. Just beyond the range is the mining town of Mount Isa, where a collection of Sybella granite formations comprise some of the oldest exposed rocks in Queensland, dated at 1.9 billion years old.
BRINGING OUR ATTENTION back to fossils, albeit the more modern kind, one of the world’s richest known deposits of vertebrate fossils is found at the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, located about 300km north-west of Mount Isa. Recognised by UNESCO as one of the most significant Australian mammal fossil sites, Riversleigh features fossils from cave, lake and stream deposits that together tell the evolutionary story of Australia’s unique wildlife.
My family and I join a discovery tour at the Riversleigh Fossil Discovery Centre in Mount Isa, which is recommended for visitors who plan to make the drive out to Riversleigh. Our guide, fossil enthusiast Alan Rackham, is
a fount of knowledge, who explains the Riversleigh fossil record dates to between 50 and 30mya. It was at this time, after the vast inland seas receded, that the ancestors of many of Australia’s native animals first evolved. The climate was warm and humid, and the landscape covered in thick forest.
The centre is filled with engaging, interactive learning spaces and offers exceptional hands-on experiences. At one station, we dance with a virtual Dromornithid, a giant flightless bird known as a demon duck that stood about 2m tall and weighed some 250kg. These birds lived at Riversleigh about 25mya.
In the centre’s fossil lab, we look through microscopes at tiny teeth and bones that were fossilised in ghost bat guano, and we peer into huge vats to see acid slowly eating away at millions of years of sediment to reveal fossil treasures within. Alan says prehistoric crocodiles could run as fast on land as modern humans, and that carnivorous kangaroos with sharp teeth dominated the landscape. His enthusiasm for Riversleigh’s fossils and the creatures they represent is infectious. “We started with one dig site and now have almost 300,” he says. “And there’s still approximately 35km of sites we have not yet excavated, so there is plenty left to discover.”
Riversleigh is one of the world’s most important paleontological sites. In 2019, 25 years after it was declared a World Heritage area, Sir David Attenborough prepared a statement for the occasion. “Riversleigh is one of the great wonders of the paleontological world,” he wrote. “What other site has produced such an extraordinary assemblage of mammals, birds, reptiles, and many other creatures completely new to science. Not just one or two species but literally hundreds of them. And not just new but undreamed of.”
I didn’t expect to find such a treasure at the end of our road trip. But it was one of many delights we relished as we banked knowledge and experiences we never imagined possible during a six-day family holiday to western Queensland. To top it all off, we’re taking home the 100-million-year-old fossils we found with our own hands.