Australia Weather News

Visitors can again make it through to the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum in outback Queensland after floodwaters forced the iconic attraction to shut up shop for two weeks.

The museum's access road was closed earlier this month after 120 millimetres of rain turned a trickling creek that flows across the road into a 400-metre-wide river.

The access road was officially reopened by the Winton Shire Council on Wednesday.

Museum director David Elliott estimated the closure had cost the museum up to $150,000 in potential earnings.

"It's a huge loss for us and I'm worried about that too, because it's in peak season," Mr Elliott said.

"We only have a couple of months a year of really high visitor numbers and then it tapers off on either side.

"June, July, August are our biggest visitation [months] so we had to turn away buses and dinner guests and all sorts of stuff.

"Plus 150 to 200 people a day who'd be coming through in caravans.

"That's a huge loss of income for us."

Mr Elliott said he would investigate whether the museum, as a not-for-profit organisation, would be entitled to any government assistance due to exceptional circumstances.

He said he also hoped it would give further weight to the case for the access road to be sealed.

"Once we get a bitumen road out there it's going to make a huge difference — not just to Winton, not just to the museum, but to the whole of western Queensland really," he said.

"It'll bring bigger numbers out in to these smaller communities and bring them further right out into western Queensland to places like Boulia, Richmond and Hughenden.

"Those smaller towns, they rely heavily on tourism and we've got a big part to play in helping bring numbers out into those communities."

Floodwaters trap museum staff at work

The floodwaters meant that not only were visitors unable to get into the museum, staff were unable to get out for 10 days.

Several staff stayed in workers' accommodation and ate food from a freezer attached to the attraction's restaurant.

Mr Elliott said a trip to the Winton bakery for pies and coffees was the top priority for staff when they finally surfaced by crossing a creek on foot on Saturday.

He said fruit and vegetables were in short supply by the time they made it out.

"All the veggies, they don't last very long usually," he said.

"We were living on eggs and we were running out of eggs, but yeah it's all good, we had plenty of tucker."

Despite all the dramas caused by the rain, Mr Elliott said it was very much welcome.

"At the end of the day we need rain out here to survive anyway and we've had it and that's good," he said.