MSO Loganville

Our next stop was going to be about 35ks out of Brisbane at another MSO. I had to take a photo of the bridge we had to cross to get there. To me it looked like it was out of a movie about earthquakes. I have seen movies where the force rising out of the ground twisting the road with it’s power. Of course there are always cars on the road and they plunge down into the abyss the earthquake has just created never to be seen again. We were going to be driving over the bridge with our van in tow. I have been in several earthquakes and they have only been little shakes but they were still frightening. I mentioned my thoughts to Adrian and he just ignored me, so much for loving support. Not that I was frightened I just thought it was interesting the way the bridge looked and it made me think of earthquakes and movies.

We found our MSO very easy and settled in. They invited us in for drinks just as I had started to cook dinner. Adrian when over to socialise and I continued on cooking. The lady of the house decided to come and say hi. I wasn’t happy about that. It was nice of her but when I am cooking it is best to leave me alone, it was a good thing I was making a tart and it is a very easy recipe.

For our first day we took the train into the city, getting off at South Bank. We walked past the Maritime Museum and talked about going in. Time was not on our side so we just had a look at the outside exhibits you could see from the walkway.

What a lovely area South Bank is. We have both been to Brisbane before and we had walked down to the foreshore for dinner on one of those nights. Since then it has changed greatly with the adding of the water play zone. The beach area, wow, what a fantastic concept. A beach beside a river in the middle of a city. It even had seagulls. I was so impressed with that. We had arrived early in the morning so we had the place to ourselves. Even better we didn’t have a paddle but the idea did cross my mind.

We continued on walking past the Epicurus Gardens. If I thought the beach idea was fantastic the garden was even better. The garden is quite large with all types of fruit and vegetables growing just to be given away. It all looked great; sadly we were not there on a day when the volunteers were there to harvest so we missed out.

From the garden we made our way to the museum walking under the umbrella of flowers and past the wildlife that made the area it’s home.

The museum was smaller than I was expecting but well set out. They have a lovely section of dinosaurs with the main focus on the stampede. I was very interested in how the museum displayed the stampede as we had seen the original.

We met Mutt again as well as Kenny.

Mutt is an herbivorous dinosaur. He could walk on either two or four legs and tip the scales round the 2,800 make. You may be thinking you wouldn’t like to meet him on a cold dark night but it would be ok as he only liked to snack on plants. Mutt belongs to the ornithopods family and is thought to live between 210 and 65 million years ago.

Kenny is a megafauna and is the largest known marsupial to roam the earth. His remains were found at Eulo. We saw his statue when we visited the town. To me he looked like a happy Quokka (Quokka’s are found mainly in WA on Rotnest Island.)

There was a copy of a section of the stampeed. What I found interesting about this is the museum offered some new ideas to me about what happened at the quarry. At one stage it was suggested the footprints were made by the dinosaurs over a long period of time when they went swimming and not a stampede. (They didn’t tell us that when we were at Lark’s Quarry.) The footprints have been studied over the years with 3D photogrammetric analysis (they were looking for pressure points on toes and heals.) The scientists looked at the flow of water at the time and the direction of the footprints as well as the fossil plants and insects to show they were food for the different dinosaurs and it suggests the idea of swimming dinosaurs. Now new evidence has been found to confirm the stampede theory (I think, depending what you read on the net.)

Who would have though some footprints would have caused so much interest? I like the stampede story best. A lot of dinosaurs swimming just doesn’t have the same excitement for me.

I also found out about the Seymour Quarry. I can’t remember being told about that site when we were at the Lark’s Quarry. The stampede continues on from the Lark Quarry to the Seymour Quarry. In all, there are over 3,000 footprints made by maybe 130 different dinosaurs and also at least two small crocodiles. It makes the mind boggle to think about so many dinosaurs in one place at one time (maybe the swimming idea has some merit after all.)

I finally had to drag myself away from the dinosaur display to see the rest of the museum. Great stuff.

Not everything was dead and old at the museum. There was a section where they were some live spiders and snakes. The Green Pythons are bright yellow when they are young and change to green when they hit adulthood. Still scary no matter what colour they are.

In that section there was even a woman who was working at a desk with a spider on the counter in a little class cage. I don’t think I could do that. I would prefer not to know there was a spider near by. The biggest spider in Australia has a body length of about 60mm and a leg span of 160 mm. If that isn’t frighting enough they have fangs that can reach to a length of 10mm. It is only one of the 2,400 different spider species we have. Spiders, not a big fan.

There was a fantastic section on under the ocean with an interaction step thingy. It looked like you were walking across water. Of course I walked across it, several times just to watch the wave resonate away from me. What can I say I am a big kid at heart.

Outside the ocean theme continued with blue whales hanging from the rafters. It gave everyone a chance to stand under them and look up.

When we finished with the museum we grabbed some lunch at a café, which was back along the foreshore overlooking the beach. We then took a turn around the shops trying to walk off lunch. We found ourselves in Brisbane’s oldest motion picture theatre, The Regent. When it was opened in 1927 it was thought to be one of the most opulent and lavish entertainment venues of the times. The idea was to make everyone feel like royalty and as we looked around it I could believe it did. It cost £300,000 to create such luxury for 2500 seats. If you were lucky enough to be able to afford the Lounge or Dress Circle, a seat would have set you back 2 shilling (or 20 cents) but the general public would have participated in the stalls seat. They were only 1 shilling each but still showed a feel of luxury.

Over time the theatre has changed greatly. The superfluous that once was, can still be seen as the foyer offers an amazing backdrop to the information centre.

It was a long day and we arrived back at the van in time for happy hour with our hosted. This time I was there with a drink in hand. It was a good think we had left over as it was going to be a late nigh.