Outback Queensland

Our next stop in QLD was Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park.  This park is fairly remote, requiring a day's drive on gravel roads from the nearest town.
 
Entry into the park is past a permanent river (spring-fed) which flows quite vigorously all year round. 


Don’t get washed away!




What this park is really known for is its fossils.  This area was a series of spring-fed lakes and swamp tens of thousands of years ago.  The calcium content caused the silt at the bottom to turn rapidly into limestone.  Bones from animals which died or drowned in the water were extremely well-preserved.  Many are easily seen from a leisurely walk.




Below you can see the cross section of a turtles shell.  A fossilized turtle found here was thought to be extinct.  However, a few years later, a population was found hundreds of km away virtually unchanged after nearly a hundred thousand years!  Talk about a throwback.



Below is a cross section of a crocodile leg bone.  Fossils found here show many species of crocodile that have since gone extinct.  Including a terrestrial (land-dwelling) crocodile that hunted in the open grasslands!




One of the more interesting fossils is that of an enormous flightless bird.  Weighing between 500 and 650lbs, this monster stood up to 8ft tall! 


You can see part of a leg bone below, as well as the “gut stones” it swallowed to help with digestion.




We then made our way north on the Gulf Developmental Highway.

Stopping in Normanton we got to see an artist's rendition of Krys the “Savanna King”.  Krys was a saltwater crocodile shot in 1957 by a government croc-shooter named Krystina King.  He was 28ft 3in long (8.6m) and weighed over a ton.  He was probably over 70 years old.  
 



At some point the Australians realized that killing the apex predator in a ecosystem was not a good idea.  So in the 70s, crocs became protected, and the hunting ended.

We also stopped by Undara NP.  This park has a number of volcanic craters and cones, as well as one of the longest lava tubes in the world.


The dark line of vegetation in this photo is where the roof of the lava tube has caved in.   The eruption that created it started around 190,000 years ago.  It produced 1,000 cubic meters of lava per second, covered over 1500 square kilometers with molten lava.  Total volume ejected was 23 cubic kilometers.


The evidence of the recent volcanic activity is right on the surface, with swirls and flows in the volcanic rock.