Julia Creek is known for it’s unique variety of Dunnarts. (Like a mouse but bigger, faster, cuter.)
People come to the Visitors Centre just to watch it eat meatballs. It flitted all over it’s box, demonstrating lightness, quickness and dexterity, flicking like a mouse cursor under a nimble hand.
It turns out that in the wild they only live for 18 months, but in captivity for 3 to 4 years. The local celebrity "Donald" was very active just before his meal.
Awoken by the excitement of humans and a meal, we hope after our departure it tucked under a rock and slept the day away.
Roxanna takes a shot at the bull riding trophy. :-) (Similar shot to yesterday, but great minds think alike!)
The little museum dedicated to the dunnart was charming and amusing. The video portrayed it as a deadly rodent not to be trifled with.
Thank you for hosting the team this morning Richmond! We loved meeting Donald (the dunnart) and his caretakers.
From it’s first rays at 7am, the suns power was tangible today, making pools of heat in the unshadowed air.
Chilly from the dawn, stepping in to one of these brought daylight instantly to ones bones. Closer to midday, with nothing to hide under, and the wind lying still, the heat only prospered. Our 39km were hot. Like the Dunnart, when the k’s were said and done, our energy melted away, we went to recover under a tree.
Today the whole team ran from Julia Creek to Richmond 149km.
Atulya was lucky enough to cross paths with Rod Marshdale. He had a double lung transplant in 2015 and has since competed in many triathlons, a 42 km marathon, an 18km swim-a-thon for men’s mental health and has a truly inspiring story.
Then we were off for an impromptu visit to Richmond’s famous Kronosaurus Korner.
Suprisingly to some, it is to these out of the way places that the world turns it’s eyes. Here, in Queenslands dinosaur deposits, prehistoric worlds are being uncovered.
Gary Flewelling, volunteer educator and paleontology enthusiast from Nova Scotia gave us a detailed tour of the bones unearthed by the community here.
After the run, in the afternoon we visited the Richmond dinosaur museum "Kronosaurus Korner", where the mayor of the city, John Wharton (pictured with the torch), honored us with his presence. It was thanks to the mayor and his initiative that the team was able to get to the fascinating, millions of years old past.
We also met Travis Enright, volunteer excavator, painstakingly preparing the bones for study.
Later on that night, Travis, Gary, and Gary’s wife Barb joined us for a team dinner cooked by our one of our Peace Run chefs – Edgars.
Prachar receives a very nice souvenir from the museum, 100 million year old squid fossils!
Some runners set up tents, very close to the lawn sprinklers. But they only found out about it in the early hours of the next morning. Unfortunately, Atulya's tent with no rain fly took the hardest hit. :-(
Thank you so much to the Lakeview Caravan Park for giving us the space to rest and recuperate our weary bodies!
The stars here very often steal the show!
