After breakfast we did a few chores and then headed out to the Eromanga Natural History Museum. The Museum, dedicated to local dinosaurs and megafauna has only been open for five months and exists because of the generosity of the State Govt. Apparently the local dinosaur, 'Cooper' was the biggest animal ever to live on earth. We made sure we arrived with plenty of time to have mornos at the 4th Trochanter Café inside the Museum building. We did the 11 am tour and had plenty of time post brew, to browse the merchandise and take pictures of the stuff in the reception area. Something that stuck us both was that 4.6 billion years ago, the earth's temperature was greater than 2000 deg C, between 3.2 and 2.8 billion years ago, the temperature was -30 deg C. Between 2.4 and 2.1 billion years ago it was -50 deg C during the First Snowball Earth period. There was a second Snowball Earth period between 720-635 million years ago, between 635-541 million years ago it was 55-85 deg C, and there were no humans around then polluting the atmosphere, just dinosaurs farting! And they say there is global warming happening because of what man is doing; Wendy is calling BS on this, and reckons it is just the natural cycle of things on earth. So, we get wiped out again sometime in the future because it is too hot. Earth will bounce back as she has done many times before. Rant over!
At 11 am we were met by our guide. Corey and first up was a 20 minute movie about earth's evolution and why we are finding bones of old things today. It was very well done and very informative. We then went out into the workshop which was very much like the one at Winton, only smaller. They had a number of exhibits that had been recovered and were in various stages of being cleaned and pieced back together. Corey even showed us how they use some of the tools to get dirt and sediment off the old bones; they sounded like dental drills.
Next up we went into a room that is temperature and humidity controlled where completed specimens are stored and on display. They currently have enough specimens to work on for another 90 man-years. And, they do a two-week dig on the dinosaur site every year and another on the megafauna site. The reason they only dig for two weeks is that if they dug continuously, they would have to have a very big storage shed and a shedload full of workers to process them all. Better to leave them in the ground where they have been preserved already.
Back to the van for lunch and a little rest before visiting the Eromanga Living History Centre. We were really looking forward to seeing this as the reviews have been really good. Alas, there was not a whole lot to see and 10 minutes later, we were back on the bikes riding around the small township.
Back to the van for exercises before settling in for the night.
Australotitan cooperensis
Coopers femur
4th trochanter on Coopers femur
Some of the displays in the workshop
Corey showing us how to use a dentists drill to remove sediment from a fossilised bone
The workshop
One of Coopers replica 3D printed limbs, with Greg as a comparison
giant kangaroo
Some of the megafauna that are related to current living species
Giant wombat-type animal
Giant perentie
Crocodile
Knot-o-saurus, a life-sized sculpture of a Sauropod and two babies. Mum is over 3.5m tall and 10m long, can grow up to 40m long
An overall view of Knot-o-saurus park, a project in the making
The only thing worth photographing at the Living History Centre
We were going to have dinner here, however, it is pizza night and pizza night only: Greg is not overly fond of normal pizzas as they have too much cheese for him, so left-overs it was
Artesian Bore Head at Eromanga
Eromanga stock route bore
Finally found out what iOR stands for
A couple of guinea fowl on our morning walk
