DINO DOINGS DOWN UNDER

FOOTPRINTS NEAR NEW ZEALAND MOUNTAIN TELL AN OLD STORY

Author: By Bud Collins

Date: SUNDAY, July 19, 1998

Page: M17

Section: Travel

Still, standing here, you can imagine the Duke trying, doing his best, to lasso a dinosaur and turn the herd in his inimitable style, presumably a master in any eon of any beast on the hoof.

You can almost hear the rumble, the hoofbeats of the ``Great Dinosaur Stampede,'' in this hot, desolate scrubland where it happened well before man turned up on the planet. The evidence lies before you: ``Dino twacks!'' in the immortal vernacular of Bugs Bunny's pursuer, Elmer Fudd, that befuddled authority on ``wabbit twacks.''

Eyeing them warily, Elmer undoubtedly would cry, ``Dastardly dino twacks!'' And make twacks himself, lest the awesome creatures return from the Mid-Cretaceous Period (following the Jurassic of Spielbergian film fame).

At the foot of Mount Campbell, nothing more than a good-sized crimson-toned hill, are the footprints of a prehistoric confrontation and helter-skelter flight. A preserved treasure, they are protected only by a lonely 20- by 30-yard shed, tin-roofed and open on all sides, that passes as a museum at the isolated indentation called Lark Quarry.

``This,'' says Paul Neilsen, one of the great guides of the Outback, ``is what remains of a scary day way, way, way back when. ``Scary for the mob of coelurosars that showed up for a drink.''

Ruddy and compact with neatly trimmed mustache, Neilsen, a self-sufficient down under-style Marlboro Man whom Wayne would admire, has worked with herds himself. He adjusts a felt cattleman's hat, pauses to light a cigarette, then describes the scene as archeologists have figured it out.

``Hard to imagine in this bloody dry territory today -- we're in the midst of a seven-year drought -- but this was a billabong, a muddy pond in moist, forested country. Maybe a lake. Anyway these thirsty coelurosars are out on a sandbar when this huge and ever-hungry carnosaur happens by, and looks dinner in the eye. A lot of dinners.

``Not exactly a poultry dinner, although the coelurosars are lizards that look like fowls, bird-footed like emus, but with forepaws. Not small. Over three feet tall. But the carnosaur feels like a fox in the henhouse. Towering more than seven feet, with a five-foot stride that moves it along at five m.p.h.

``Look at its prints.'' Nearly feet in length, they seem huge maple leaves, fit for even more than Shaquille O'Neal's sneakers, or any other in the NBA. Size M for mammoth and murder.

It was the malice in the carnosaur's eyes that started the stampede.

``Apparently the terrified smaller animals felt their best chance,'' says Neilsen, ``was not to flee conventionally. But to go right at the monster, confuse it by racing past before it could get its bearings, and turn.''

The splatter of lesser prints are pointed toward, and are on either side of, the few ominous larger ones.

Neilsen smiles. ``End of story as far as can be determined. These are the only prints that have been excavated from layers of mud, sediment, and rock that came later. The first indication of what lay below was uncovered a few years ago by Glen Seymour, Peter Knowles, and Ron McKenzie, prospectors digging around for opals.''

They found something else. Priceless, though unmarketable, unwearable.

``We don't know how many of the stampeders got away, evaded the big daddy dino's dinner table. Maybe future excavations will complete the story. If there are any. Getting money for things like that out here is difficult. You can see how inadequate, impermanent this shed is.''

Back in the Toyota Land Cruiser, the frame-shaking, rump-bumping ride continues.

There's no hiding anything out here from Paul, wildlife or topography. His friendship with the territory's ranchers allows him to enter the vast properties and share seemingly lost valleys, gorges, and summits with his clients.

Merton Gorge, as seen from a promontory I call ``Neilsen Point'' -- one of a series of mini-buttes -- is a mile-and-a-half wide, and wriggles 40 miles. Sandstone walls, splashed in pinks and yellows, join a floor whose patterns of blue and green spinifex grass have a landscaped appearance. Burned-out patches from bush fires clear the way for natural renewal. Thanks, Paul says, to the great arsonist god: ``A benefactor the aborigines call Inuri.''

The wind sounds like an express train traversing Williams Valley, another breathtaking vista. A 600-square-mile eyeful, 25 miles across, embracing crags, ridges, domes, and hillsides that are rocky swirls of color -- yellow, mustard, mint, rose, white, copper. Mount Williams and Mount Booka Dwooka stick their snouts above all else.

He shows us high-rise housing developments for ants and termites: rusty four- and five-foot pylons built by the industrious occupants. And a flat for bats, a narrow, bottomless crevasse that they never leave. ``Some naturalists say they may be prehistoric types.''

At Jessamyn Creek, a pair of tall brolgas -- redheaded gray cranes -- are engaged in a slow, stately, wing-flapping mating dance. ``Not a bad idea,'' Paul says, winking at my friend Aurelio.

``Too hot for mating or dancing,'' she says. ``A swim would be nice.''

``No worries.'' He just happens to know some good old swimming holes called Honeycomb Wells: dimples in an outcropping filled with jade-hued water, and shaded by cantheum trees, convenient clothes racks. ``Take your pick of pools.'' A broad-winged peeping tom, a wedge-tailed eagle swoops, flushing a couple of kangaroos from the bush, then soars.

He explains that aborigines use cantheum branches for fishing purposes. ``You put the branches in the water and they absorb the oxygen, so the fish have to come to the surface. Easy picking.''

Nielsen's base is his Tattersall Hotel in Winton, a proud community of 200 on the Matilda Highway, proclaiming itself as the home of the sparkling new million-dollar Waltzing Matilda Centre. Probably the only museum in the world dedicated to a song -- Australia's theme, ``Waltzing Matilda,'' written in the neighborhood by poet Banjo Patterson in 1895 -- it is a worthy attraction brimming with fascinating audios and visuals.

A few doors along the principal thoroughfare is Searle's, the 52-year-old general store offering ``everything -- and we'll get it for you if we don't have it,'' according to the boss, Bernie Searle. ``We rent wedding gowns,'' he says, smiling at Aurelio. ``Used to be good business. But it seems that most couples don't get married anymore.''

A few feet away, Paul's hotel is a local sanctuary (i.e., pub) where soothing 4X Beer is a foaming hedge against the heat. Genuine cowboys, drinking and contemplating a sign behind the bar -- ``Hangovers Sold and Serviced'' -- loyally wear caps of their favorite rugby team, the North Queensland Cowboys.

One of them, Mark, says they ride herd with motorbikes and helicopters nowadays, ``But horses are coming back a little because cows have learned to hide from the choppers and bikes.''

He says he's sorry to have missed the dinosaurs and would have loved to chase them on a motorbike. Maybe after a few more 4Xs.