Day 13. 17th May 2024. Winton – A place for old dinosaurs
When planning the trip and Linda asked me about Winton, I was keen to go as one of our highlights on trip one was zooming around Bathurst at 60ks an hour and reliving hours of Gran Turismo driving. Thinking that we would get to at least have another look at a race track, It dawned on me later that the Winton I was thinking of is in Victoria.
The Winton we arrived at is famous for two things, and don’t you forget it. The first, allegedly Banjo Patterson wrote and performed Waltzing Matilda in Winton at the North Gregory Hotel. The only thing they have thrown money at in the town centre is a Waltzing Matilda museum, which is lovely and modern – just like a jolly jumbuck would have liked.
Secondly, some bloke found some dinosaurs fossils on his property a few years back and has decided that tourism works better than farming and has created a large dinosaur park about 10k out of town. From all accounts it is successful and popular.
What I thought of when we had a beer outside one of the 4 pubs servicing a population of 4000 was another Weddings Parties Anything Song. It really appeared that the rain didn’t fall in this shit town, and the windows of the shops did need cleaning. Blue heelers were everywhere, and the buildings (except for the Waltzing Matilda Centre) were leaning. I didn’t see a Dero on the well manicured Nature Strip but the dust, the dust. It was everywhere, in my eyes and in my hair.
The song By Tomorrow is based on the movie wake in fright – and by golly, if you haven’t seen it and want to see a young Jack Thompson, Aussie legends Chips Rafferty, John Mellion (the voice of VB) in a setting of drinking, debauchery and hunting, check it out and hold onto your hats. Anyway, this one drunk, this one restless must be moving on, it’s life or death that we are gone tomorrow.
Facilities: The water for the showers are sourced deep underground from the Artesian basin, the largest and deepest basin in the world, with naturally occurring minerals and health giving benefits. In the city, people pay hundreds of dollars to sit in pools of this stuff with other people who have paid hundreds of dollars to sit in the same stuff and share whatever skin conditions they have with each other. Here, you get your own privately sourced and unshared water direct to you to bathe in as part of the cost! It also smells of sulphur so if you like to bathe in water that tries to make you smellier than when you started – go for it. They also had shower curtains – 3/10.