Day 21. Dinosaur Park. Friday 8th May 2015
Agreed that to save time and get away quickly we could do everything at Fressons a kind of chain store. Discovered the cafe had limited food available but you could buy whatever you wanted and eat it there. Even a microwave provided for heating food. Ambience nil. Food selection extensive.
Bought lunch to go and as we approached counter the woman at checkout disappeared. After waiting discovered cigarettes can only be sold outside of the building so there is a counter outside she was also managing.
Left Drumheller for Dinosaur Provincial Park excited for another adventure. Down amongst the Hoodoos what a place : almost 20,000 acres, UNESCO World Heritage listed. It was further from Drumheller than we had realised – about 2 hours drive, so we were pleased the AirBnB was full and we had had to make other arrangements closer to the park.
Began at the Visitors centre with another very helpful young Canadian woman who was enthusiastic about the park and what it had to offer. She also seconded what we had been told yesterday that the interpretive guiding did not start till the following weekend except for a group of new staff recruits being inducted. We did meet them later along the way but the guide did not seem overly happy to have us eavesdropping!
The centre is part of Royal Tyrell and has a small number of exhibits including two out in the field as they were found. One that fascinated us both was an imprint of a dinosaur the size of which made one consider how it would have been to see the massive creatures:
Another exhibit showed two toe bones one with arthritis and one without.
There were a series of self guided trails around a loop road to explore the different aspects of the park including fossil houses, Hoodoos, Prairie walk, Cottonwood trees and of course Badlands. A great park and we thought better than what we had seen so far.
The blurb explains over 49 species of dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous (a whopping 75 million years ago, have been found in the park (and are still being found). One interpretive walk “The Trail of the Fossil Hunters’ explained more about the early European Dinosaur explorers and their discoveries ending at the original quarry. Chris did find a photo of Tyrell next to a Moa bone. Not sure of the story but piqued our interest.
Had lunch alongside the poor old headless Hadrosaur display overlooking the badlands. Having discovered the Hadrosaur was often headless because it had a week neck being a Vego! While the T Rex most often had a head being a carnivore!
Stayed in Brooks at a surprisingly inexpensive motel Telstar Knights Inn – was clean an provided good facilities including washing machines which were sorely needed.
Before we even arrived in Brooks Chris had alerted my to recommendation for an Indian resturant called the Mango Tree. We had great meal of old favorites-tandoori,samosas, vegie curries and naan. Happy happy Mel.
