There are not many places where you can stand on the floor of a vanished sea in the morning and walk beside the footprints of a fleeing dinosaur by afternoon. Queensland's Dinosaur Trail is one of them — a loop of roughly 332 kilometres through the north-west that ties together three small towns and 100 million years of history.
Richmond: the bottom of an ancient sea
The trail's marine chapter belongs to Richmond, a tidy grazing town that once sat beneath a vast inland sea. Its museum, Kronosaurus Korner, holds some of the finest marine-reptile fossils in Australia, and you can still fossick the old seabed yourself at sites just out of town.
It is a strange and wonderful thing to hold a piece of that sea in your hand, hundreds of kilometres from today's coast.
Hughenden and the Muttaburrasaurus
An easy run east brings you to Hughenden, home of 'Hughie', the Muttaburrasaurus, at the Flinders Discovery Centre. North of town, the colourful walls of Porcupine Gorge — 'Australia's Little Grand Canyon' — make a fine detour for anyone with time.
Winton: where the giants walked
The trail's grand finale is Winton, Australia's dinosaur capital. The Australian Age of Dinosaurs holds the largest collection of Australian dinosaur fossils in the country, while Lark Quarry, south-west of town, preserves the only recorded dinosaur stampede on Earth.
Stand in that quiet shelter, looking at thousands of 95-million-year-old footprints, and the deep past feels suddenly, vividly close.
Doing the trail well
My advice is to give the trail at least a few unhurried days, travel in the cooler months from April to October, and let someone else handle the long outback driving if you can. On a guided Dinosaur Trail journey, the kilometres simply slip by while you take in the science and the country.