Dinosaur Stampede at Lark Quarry Conservation Park
Dinosaur Stampede at Lark Quarry Conservation Park
Dinosaur Stampede at Lark Quarry Conservation Park
4.5
About
The dinosaur trackways at the Dinosaur Stampede were formed 95 million years ago when outback Australia was a vastly different place. In stark contrast to the arid climate of today, the landscape was characterised by a great river plain, with towering conifers and lush vegetation interspersed with sandy channels, swamps and lakes brimming with freshwater mussels, lungfish and crocodiles. The climate was humid and cool with an average rainfall of over one metre. It was in this setting that a herd of at least 150 small, two-legged dinosaurs, including carnivorous coelurosaurs about the size of chickens and slightly larger plant-eating ornithopods, came to drink at the edge of a lake. What happened next is immortalised in stone! Over 3,300 footprints of these long-extinct dinosaurs are scattered over the rock face, stark evidence of the terror they must have experienced as they fled the scene upon the arrival of a large theropod. This snapshot of a few terrifying moments has been frozen in time, immortalising the event and making Lark Quarry Conservation Park home to the only known dinosaur stampede in the world. Truly an experience not to be missed!
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2-3 hours
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- goughsix19 contributionsEducational visitWow! The facts and figures so hard to comprehend 95 million years old! So interesting, well presented and the loop walk allowed you to imagine why it took so long for these footprints to be uncovered and discovered! The building itself is awesome!Visited August 2023Travelled with familyWritten 28 August 2023
- WoodgateFamilyBrisbane, Australia276 contributionsInteresting looking back deep into the past.Make sure you prebook, as this is in the middle of nowhere and we did actually see someone get turned away after driving 110kms to get there. A lot of the road is unsealed but suitable for all vehicles. Nice facilities that blend beautifully into the landscape. The tour is good and it is interesting to see the site. The walk around the area is stunning and well worth taking the time to do.Visited September 2023Travelled as a coupleWritten 28 September 2023
- Navigator394111034219 contributionsAmazing Sight to SeeWOW. This was amazing to see the footprints and hear the story of the stampede. Very informative guide who was eager to please. Had some great little walks at the Quarry and made you feel as if a dinosaur would come out at any minute. Worth the drive out with some parts of the road being dirt.Visited November 2023Travelled with familyWritten 28 November 2023
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Navigator39411103421
9 contributions
Nov. 2023 • Family
WOW. This was amazing to see the footprints and hear the story of the stampede. Very informative guide who was eager to please. Had some great little walks at the Quarry and made you feel as if a dinosaur would come out at any minute. Worth the drive out with some parts of the road being dirt.
Written 28 November 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
OrderintheHouse
Brisbane2,810 contributions
Nov. 2022 • Couples
There is a lot to be said for not travelling overseas all the time, but occasionally having a look at the splendours on offer in one’s own country – “having a look in one’s own backyard” to put it another way.
As a consequence of the Covid 19 pandemic which curtailed overseas travel everywhere, my wife and I decided to take on our “own backyard” in the last quarter of 2022 and enjoy the wonders of the Longreach and Winton region in outback Queensland, on an organised bus tour with Outback Aussie Tours.
Our tour included three nights in Longreach and two in Winton. We visited a wide range of interesting attractions in both towns. Included in the Winton leg of the journey were two memorable dinosaur discovery experiences - the Age of Dinosaurs on one day ( reviewed separately) and the Dinosaur Stampede at Lark Quarry Conservation Park, on another day.
We travelled to Lark Quarry and the Dinosaur Stampede via the Dinosaur Drive (a 243 kilometre loop) leaving Winton early at 7:45am and calling in to Carisbrooke Station along the way. At Carisbrooke Station we followed the scenic Cory’s Range drive to see the “Three Sisters” rock formation. Both Carisbrooke Station and Lark Quarry are located south west from Winton (Carisbrooke Station around 80 kilometres from Winton and Lark Quarry, a further 50 kilometres away). It’s a fair drive, so if travellers are planning this trip in their own vehicle, it would be wise to devote a full day to this adventure.
The Dinosaur Stampede was well worth the long drive to see. We were informed that around 95 million years ago, dinosaurs stampeded along a streambed in the Lark Quarry area. Miraculously 3,300 of their footprints still survive today. The tracks have remained undisturbed and in pristine condition over all those millions of years until the early 1960’s when Glen Seymour, manager of a nearby grazing station, spotted something unusual. This sighting prompted the Queensland Museum to commence excavating the first dinosaur footprints in 1971. During the excavation, it became apparent that these precious trackways would become exposed to the elements, so to combat that possibility. a very impressive purpose build shelter building was constructed by the Queensland Government at a cost of $2.5 million. Combating temperature extremes was also an issue so the building used rammed earth walls with special aluminium insulation and other passive devices to maintain the temperature at around 25 degrees C. all year round.
Access to the trackways building from the car and bus parking area is via a well constructed bridge walkway, adorned with innovative and artistic poster boards strategically placed against the walkway’s railings. These posters provided an interpretive timeline, taking visitors on a journey of what the World was like 95 million years ago to what it is today. Our dinosaur discovery tour ‘kicked off’ in a small auditorium, where we were given insight into the discovery of the rare dinosaur footprints and shown a short film that reconstructed what a dinosaur stampede might have looked like and with dramatic effect.
From the auditorium it was on to the viewing platforms of the covered trackway. Here we were awestruck by the well preserved dinosaur footprints on display before us, both small and large, that had been frozen in time in ancient mudflats. It is believed that the large footprints were of a large-bodied carnivorous theropod dinosaur, a little smaller than a Tyrannosaurus, and the smaller footprints made by small-bodied coelurosaurian theropods about the size of a chicken and herbivorous ornithopods, some as large as an emu. The stampede took place, it is suggested, when the terrified smaller dinosaurs were running away from the large theropod and fearing for their lives. What we witnessed was the only well preserved dinosaur stampede existing anywhere in this World – and for that fact alone, it is an experience not to be missed. We were permitted to take as many photos as we wished, however, it was difficult to capture the footprints with a camera to good effect, so the better course, as always in these situations is to see things first hand and have them clearly etched in one’s memory.
After the tour, we enjoyed a packaged picnic lunch (chicken salad, a lamington, fruit salad and a popper juice) at one of the outside picnic shelters. There were also options after lunch to tackle a couple of interesting walks in the Park. We chose the Spinifex Walk, an easy to moderate 700 metre self guided circuit that climbs the mesa ((a wide, flat, elevated landform with steep sides) that overlooks the trackways building. Excellent views of the trackways building and surrounding mesas can be viewed from the lookout at the end of this walk.
I can’t leave this review without making a brief mention of our visit to Carisbrooke Station on the way to Lark Quarry which included our awesome drive along the scenic Corey Range and marvelling at the sheer beauty of the magnificent three mesa landforms known affectionately as ‘The Three Sisters’ (named Mary, Maude, and Kate). The scenery on this journey was quite stunning. A visit to the Lark Quarry Conservation Park incorporating the Dinosaur Stampede is not complete without first calling in beforehand to see first hand, these magnificent landforms and the associated scenery along the way.
As a consequence of the Covid 19 pandemic which curtailed overseas travel everywhere, my wife and I decided to take on our “own backyard” in the last quarter of 2022 and enjoy the wonders of the Longreach and Winton region in outback Queensland, on an organised bus tour with Outback Aussie Tours.
Our tour included three nights in Longreach and two in Winton. We visited a wide range of interesting attractions in both towns. Included in the Winton leg of the journey were two memorable dinosaur discovery experiences - the Age of Dinosaurs on one day ( reviewed separately) and the Dinosaur Stampede at Lark Quarry Conservation Park, on another day.
We travelled to Lark Quarry and the Dinosaur Stampede via the Dinosaur Drive (a 243 kilometre loop) leaving Winton early at 7:45am and calling in to Carisbrooke Station along the way. At Carisbrooke Station we followed the scenic Cory’s Range drive to see the “Three Sisters” rock formation. Both Carisbrooke Station and Lark Quarry are located south west from Winton (Carisbrooke Station around 80 kilometres from Winton and Lark Quarry, a further 50 kilometres away). It’s a fair drive, so if travellers are planning this trip in their own vehicle, it would be wise to devote a full day to this adventure.
The Dinosaur Stampede was well worth the long drive to see. We were informed that around 95 million years ago, dinosaurs stampeded along a streambed in the Lark Quarry area. Miraculously 3,300 of their footprints still survive today. The tracks have remained undisturbed and in pristine condition over all those millions of years until the early 1960’s when Glen Seymour, manager of a nearby grazing station, spotted something unusual. This sighting prompted the Queensland Museum to commence excavating the first dinosaur footprints in 1971. During the excavation, it became apparent that these precious trackways would become exposed to the elements, so to combat that possibility. a very impressive purpose build shelter building was constructed by the Queensland Government at a cost of $2.5 million. Combating temperature extremes was also an issue so the building used rammed earth walls with special aluminium insulation and other passive devices to maintain the temperature at around 25 degrees C. all year round.
Access to the trackways building from the car and bus parking area is via a well constructed bridge walkway, adorned with innovative and artistic poster boards strategically placed against the walkway’s railings. These posters provided an interpretive timeline, taking visitors on a journey of what the World was like 95 million years ago to what it is today. Our dinosaur discovery tour ‘kicked off’ in a small auditorium, where we were given insight into the discovery of the rare dinosaur footprints and shown a short film that reconstructed what a dinosaur stampede might have looked like and with dramatic effect.
From the auditorium it was on to the viewing platforms of the covered trackway. Here we were awestruck by the well preserved dinosaur footprints on display before us, both small and large, that had been frozen in time in ancient mudflats. It is believed that the large footprints were of a large-bodied carnivorous theropod dinosaur, a little smaller than a Tyrannosaurus, and the smaller footprints made by small-bodied coelurosaurian theropods about the size of a chicken and herbivorous ornithopods, some as large as an emu. The stampede took place, it is suggested, when the terrified smaller dinosaurs were running away from the large theropod and fearing for their lives. What we witnessed was the only well preserved dinosaur stampede existing anywhere in this World – and for that fact alone, it is an experience not to be missed. We were permitted to take as many photos as we wished, however, it was difficult to capture the footprints with a camera to good effect, so the better course, as always in these situations is to see things first hand and have them clearly etched in one’s memory.
After the tour, we enjoyed a packaged picnic lunch (chicken salad, a lamington, fruit salad and a popper juice) at one of the outside picnic shelters. There were also options after lunch to tackle a couple of interesting walks in the Park. We chose the Spinifex Walk, an easy to moderate 700 metre self guided circuit that climbs the mesa ((a wide, flat, elevated landform with steep sides) that overlooks the trackways building. Excellent views of the trackways building and surrounding mesas can be viewed from the lookout at the end of this walk.
I can’t leave this review without making a brief mention of our visit to Carisbrooke Station on the way to Lark Quarry which included our awesome drive along the scenic Corey Range and marvelling at the sheer beauty of the magnificent three mesa landforms known affectionately as ‘The Three Sisters’ (named Mary, Maude, and Kate). The scenery on this journey was quite stunning. A visit to the Lark Quarry Conservation Park incorporating the Dinosaur Stampede is not complete without first calling in beforehand to see first hand, these magnificent landforms and the associated scenery along the way.
Written 20 October 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
John W
Cairns, Australia130 contributions
Sep. 2023 • Friends
The largest recorded event in the world of this type - on our back door step. Our trip did focus on dinosaurs in Australia - we were amazed - and Lark Quarry the same - what a beautiful part of Australia also. But this is so historic and educational.
Written 5 October 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
WoodgateFamily
Brisbane, Australia276 contributions
Sep. 2023 • Couples
Make sure you prebook, as this is in the middle of nowhere and we did actually see someone get turned away after driving 110kms to get there. A lot of the road is unsealed but suitable for all vehicles. Nice facilities that blend beautifully into the landscape. The tour is good and it is interesting to see the site. The walk around the area is stunning and well worth taking the time to do.
Written 28 September 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
goughsix
heathcote junction victoria19 contributions
Aug. 2023 • Family
Wow! The facts and figures so hard to comprehend 95 million years old! So interesting, well presented and the loop walk allowed you to imagine why it took so long for these footprints to be uncovered and discovered!
The building itself is awesome!
The building itself is awesome!
Written 28 August 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Anna B
North Haven, Australia24 contributions
Aug. 2023
My husband and I visited the Dinosaur Trackways which was an incredible experience. The tour was very informative and would highly recommend.
Written 19 August 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
eef l
2 contributions
Aug. 2023 • Family
Not suitable to get there in a 2 wheel drive. We drove 60 km and had to turn around. It was not safe to continu. When we had phone reception and called there was no comment about us not being able to make our booking. And bying a ticket for nothing. Dont try to make the trip in a 2 wheel drive rental car.
Written 12 August 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
TraceyC62
Burpengary, Australia155 contributions
Jul. 2023 • Couples
An amazing tour to see the only dinosaur stampede in the world. The display is well done, and the guided tour is very interesting.
Written 23 July 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Chris J
Jerusalem, Israel10 contributions
Jul. 2023 • Business
We went expecting ordinary, but it was brilliant. The dinosaur footprints were clearer than expected. The commentary and building settings were excellent. The staff were brilliant. It is a long drive there, but it’s interesting and picturesque
Written 21 July 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Janice C
Austin, TX60 contributions
Jun. 2023 • Couples
It was easy to see the stampede prints with the large dinosaur chasing the smaller ones. The short film and guide brought the event to life with the current theory. Recommend if you have time to visit. Lark Quarry is a really long drive on a partially sealed road, so if you don't have time to go to Lark Quarry be sure to see the dinosaur tracks at the Age of Dinosaurs.
Written 27 June 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Can we visit the Stampede or Lark Quarry with a dog?
TraceyC62
Burpengary, Australia155 contributions
Hi, I don't believe you can visit with a dog. Definitely would not be able to take it into the exhibit.
Barry T
Brisbane, Australia297 contributions
Can we take our small white dog with us on the Lark quarry tour. If not, is there any dog sitting places we can leave her?.
Regards
Anne
LilSips
Brisbane, Australia40 contributions
Can you explore on your own or do you have to join a tour?
wratts
Townsville, Australia62 contributions
It is not an explorer on own thing . The stampede is enclosed in a building and the rangers do tours to explain what is happening and how it was all formed .
Heliothrix
Isla Vista, CA63 contributions
Is WINTON the only place to stay if you’re not camping?
Moira D
43 contributions
If you are not camping, there are motels and hotels in both Winton and Longreach and they seem quite reasonable, but not having stayed at any of them I cannot really comment on the standards - perhaps best to read reviews from those who have stayed in one or other of the hotels/motels. Winton id the closer town to Lark Quarry and there are several accommodation options in the town,
Rumi13
18 contributions
Hi Dimity!
If you had to choose, would it be the Dinosaur Stampede at Lark Quarry or the Dinosaur Centre in Winton? We are on time constraints.
Dimityandkids
Brisbane, Australia9 contributions
It depends on a number of things:
- if you have kids and how old they are
- what time you are travelling through (both locations have show times)
- if you are driving yourself or with a tour (if by yourself the type of vehicle you have)
- which direction you are coming from. Age of the dinosaurs is on the road from Longreach so easy to call into. The stampede is maybe an hour out of Winton heading southish
- most of allot depends on what interests you. They are two extremely different experiences. If bones fascinate you go to the Age of the dinosaurs. If the fascination of 95 million year old foot prints (the only such stampede known on the planet) well head to the stampede ground.
I hope this response has been of some assistance.
Dimity
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