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and frustrated. Below us, ocean waves burst onto the rocks, a dull, rhythmic boom-
ing carried to us by a strong, cool sea breeze, imploring us to try again.
In the early afternoon, we finally found the proper route, a grassy path that
cut through the scrubby coastal forest parallel to a ravine cut by Knowledge Creek.
Two of our group went back to fetch our vehicles, a sacrifice that would shorten
the travel time for the rest of us at the end of the day and supply our field lunches,
which we had dumbly left behind. The steep incline down to the coastal outcrops
promised a long, slow fight against gravity that would coincide with diminishing
light, as the sun began arcing toward the horizon. Underestimating the length and
difficultyofthehikein,someofourgrouphadnotbroughtenoughwater,andthose
of us who did shared what little we had left. On the off chance that any dinosaur
bones would be found at the site, one of our party was hauling a portable rock saw
on his back, and another was carrying fuel for it. I did not envy their journey back
up the slope we were now descending for a third time. None of us had ever been
to Knowledge Creek, and two paleontologists who had visited before us had only
gone once, firmly vowing to never come back. We were starting to understand why.
Australians have a long tradition of ill-fated expeditions, and I felt like I had
unwittingly instigated one of these. Yet our motivations were paleontological, and
with good reason. First of all, I was in Victoria on a semester-long sabbatical from
my university to work on a science-education project with Patricia (Pat) Vickers-
Rich. In 1980, she and her husband Tom Rich trekked to Knowledge Creek; yes,
they were the two aforementioned paleontologists who had been there before us.
TheywereprospectingfordinosaurbonesintheEarlyCretaceous(~105
mya
)rocks
there,whichhadbeenfoundatothercoastaloutcropsjusteastofKnowledgeCreek.
While there, they failed to find any bones, but they did manage to discover what
was then the only clear example of a dinosaur track in all of southern Australia.
Only about 10 cm (4 in) wide and long, with three stout and well-defined toes, the
track was attributed to a small ornithopod dinosaur, probably a hypsilophodont.
