They look different to the woodswallows in flight. Then we realised they were a different colout.

Shortly after this it caught something in the grass.

The remains of a track (single footprint).

Sauropods have four roundish feet, theropods are smaller and walk on two three-toed feet.

Ergo, this must be from a sauropod.

The softer, uncompressed, rock either side, eroded.

We haven't yet figured out if that's a bit of scientific excess or real. We don't know enough.

But we can recognise the ridges and the surface "dinoturbations" (not my word, one of the scientific papers used it and it sounded right).

Like giant molars removed from heaven knows what.

And a bit in cross-section.

I do hope memories of this image don't pursue me to the dentist.

We are following the tide out.

The tide table say it will be lower than previous days. It may be a spring tide. Hopefully that will create some luck for us.

Which seem to make good bait for fishermen who have appeared and precede us to the outer edges of the rocks.

After a bit of paddling we reach a 300m long ridge, along the water's edge, that so obviously contains dinosaur footprints ..... as long as one has been pre-conditioned to see them as dinosaur tracks that is.

One can imagine mud oozing.

Which moved around by the waves will make the holes bigger, and rounder.

But are unlikely to create a raised lip.

The little bits of remaining flesh are fresh. Bait.

Sauropods have toes. Not as distinct and claw like as three-toed theropods.

Sauropod front feet are smaller than back feet.

We can't (yet) put several tracks together to see a trackway. But we can imagine something weighing 60 tonnes leaving tracks.

We are just about convinced.

I can only imagine the effort required for a dinosaur to walk through mud of this sort of depth. I know that if I try to walk through ankle deep mud I usually have to go back and retrieve my shoes. Without shoes the suction keeping my feet in the mud is hard to overcome.

The mud must have been viscous to hold its shape after the dinosaurs had passed. The stickier the mud the more effort to walk through it.

I suspect there lies a partial answer to the segregation of tracks from different dinosaurs. The smaller dinosaurs can keep to higher ground where the mud is not so deep, the larger (taller but heavier) sauropods slide down into the gully where they are ok in the deeper mud.

The shape of their feet, flat round vs toes/claws (sounds like coffee) would also play a part in where it was easier to walk. 

As well as Sauropods and Theropods which seem distinct enough for us there are apparently tracks of Thyreophorans (walk on four feet, smaller than sauropods and different foot print) and Ornithopods (walk on two feet, smaller than Theropods, with a different foot print).

Our dinosaur tracking skills are not sufficiently developed to count past two .... let alone the 21 than others have identified.

Looks to us like something from a Dr Who script.

Fishing.

They have two 4wds parked on the beach.

Those rocks look very different when stood in the middle of them.

And they are all covered at high tide.

Our low tide is 0.94m. It will be 1.05m tomorrow. And 2.35m in a few days. And 3m in 4 days time. Which possibly means the ridge is either normally inaccessible on foot or more probably under water at low tide. We have indeed fluked a spring tide.

Then an afternoon stroll. Possibly a mistake, but return to the same ridge.

On the way a crab paused to poise.

We look across the water at the dunes.

This looks fatter.

its blue (and brown).

We also saw a couple of rays exiting one of the large pools we had to paddle through.

We reached the same ridge we walked on yesterday but apart from gazing in awe at the tracks to interpret more would require a lot more effort. Unfortunately, tomorrow we move on.

We don't know if we will have another opportunity, but the tracks have been here for the last 130 million years so hopefully they won't disappear soon.

again.

Alive, but instead of skuttling away it played dead.

A clue as to what the elusive three-toed theropod tracks may have looked like.