Silo Art Trail

In order to bring people and more specifically tourists (and their wallets), to the Wimmera-Mallee region in western Victoria, the ‘Silo Art Trail’ was devised.  As the name suggests, Silo Art is the common link.  With each of the 6 towns being located within a traditional grain growing region, they all possessed grain silos.  We have all seen these silos before and never really paid them much mind due to their utilitarian nature and typically drab and plain metal or concrete construction.  In these six towns at least, the silos are drab no more!

A day or two before we were to leave Wedderburn and commence the drive back to Adelaide we came across an article in one of the regional tourist information brochures that described a driving route that linked 6 communities.  As we had no particular planned path to get back home and the fact that it was more or less in the general direction we had to go, we decided to check it out!

Silo Art Route in Western Victoria.  Click on the image to enlarge it and perhaps you will be able to read the text

The images on each of the silos was completed by different teams of local and international artists with the people portrayed in the paintings being locals from each of the regions.

We traversed the route travelling from south to north, visiting the silos in the towns of Rupanyup, Sheep Hills, Brim, Rosebery, Lascelles and finally Patchewollock.

Metal silo in Rupanyup

Painted concrete silos at Sheep Hills

The silos at Brim were the first of the six to be painted

Silo Art at Rosebery

Husband & Wife on either side of the silos in the town of Lascelles

Farmer on the silo at Patchewollock

The route links 6 towns across about 200km of the Victorian countryside and is stated to be Australia’s largest outdoor gallery!  Not being a very artistic type, I don’t have too much to say about the paintings themselves but following the Silo Art Trail made for an interesting distraction from what could have been an otherwise pretty boring transit.  

Our congratulations to the local council(s) for having the vision to do something a little different in order to take drivers off of the main highway routes and bring new eyes to their region.  We stopped for something to eat, bought some fuel and have now passed on the message to others to go and visit this area that many would normally bypass.

WTF? - Where are The Farrows? will be back after Easter 2018 when we hit the road for parts unknown for an open-ended duration.

Wedderburn Detector Jamboree

Just one week after we had arrived home from our month long tour of South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula we were off again.  This time to the small town of Wedderburn in the historic Victorian Goldfields.  The reason for this being our destination was to participate in the annual Wedderburn Metal Detector Jamboree.

Arrival at the Wedderburn Goldfields in Victoria ahead of the Detector Jamboree

We arrived a couple of days prior to the event starting so we took some time to tour the local area.  The Victorian goldfields are famous for having yielded some of the largest gold nuggets found anywhere in the world. The world’s largest nugget known as ‘The Welcome Stranger’, weighed in at over 78.3kg (2,520 ounces) and was found near Wedderburn in 1869 resting just 1 inch below the surface!  Nuggets continue to be found by metal detectors and prospectors on a regular basis in the region but they tend to be much smaller nowadays.  With that in mind Heather tried some detecting for gold in amongst some of the historic diggings that are open to the public.  While her detector is capable of locating nuggets it is better suited to her preferred target of coins and relics and as such we did not find our fortune on that day - I guess we will just have to keep searching!

Heather detecting for gold amongst historic workings

What is a Metal Detecting Jamboree?

The jamboree is a well organised 2 day event where 100 identical metallic tokens (numbered 1 thru 100 and painted green for day 1 and orange on day 2) are ‘planted’ in the competition area each night under the cover of darkness.  Metal detectorists from far and wide and of all skill levels compete on the same field at the same time using metal detectors ranging from budget models up to machines costing many thousands of dollars.  Each token found gets registered with officials and is exchanged for a ticket in a very generous prize draw.  Prizes included a couple of metal detectors, various accessories and specialised detector coils for the metal detecting enthusiasts as well as some gold panning equipment for the gold prospectors that were also competing.

Metal Detecting Equipment (much of which were prizes) on display

While Heather had brought her detector with her specifically to compete in the jamboree (if the truth be told, her metal detector travels everywhere with us just in case an opportunity to hunt presents itself), I was fortunate enough to be able to secure the use of a demo model that one of the event sponsors had brought with them so I also registered as a competitor for the weekend - you never know if you will be lucky enough to win a machine!

Clear blue skies were experienced on both days of the weekend where the cool mornings saw detectors set out with gusto as soon as the starting whistle was blown at 8am.

Just a few of the more than one hundred detectors lined up at the start line

Most of the tokens appeared to get found within the first couple of hours and with the temperature climbing rapidly towards 35 ℃, the number of participants had thinned out noticeably by lunch time.  Heather was one of the detectors to be successful early having found a token within 10 minutes of starting on day 1.  I had not had any luck with old fencing wire and pull-tabs being all I had found during the first 3 hours of the competition.  However, just as I was going to take a break (and maybe give-up for the day), my machine signalled the presence of metal below the coil so I squatted down to take a closer look.  Hidden below some leaf litter and loose dirt was what I had been hunting for!  With each of us now having a token in hand we did indeed call it quits for the day and promptly registered our tokens.

Day 1 tokens - Heather's (left) and Grant's (right) 

With most token hunters having left the field for the day (many successfully, many more not), there were several events and demonstrations held to keep the crowd and all age groups interested.  The highlight of the afternoon was the gold panning heats and final.  All sorts of techniques were on show from the various competitors including ‘Slow and Steady’ as well as ‘Fast & Furious’ and everything in between.  Very entertaining and fun to watch.

'Slow and Steady' gold panning technique ended up winning the race

Day 1 concluded with a camp oven dinner prepared by the local Lions Club members followed by a band and a dance - a good time was had by all.

Day 2 saw all of the same detectors out in the field once again, however this time they were hunting for orange tokens (91 of 100 green tokens had been found the previous day so 9 of these were also ‘still in play’).  I found a token near the base of a tree inside the first hour on day 2 but Heather had encountered some technical difficulties with her machine.  It had ‘learned’ the signal typical of the targeted token, but instead of alerting her to the presence of a token it had been discriminating against them and had been ‘silent’.  She was frustrated (to say the least!) particularly as we only discovered this when I caught up with her to show her my token and it caused no sound when she ran her machine over the top of it.  We called it a day as it was getting hot and went back to the organising area to register the orange token for the prize draw that was to occur later that day.

Some folks had registered 5 or 6 tokens each and even though we had three tokens between us in the draw, only one ended up being drawn for a minor prize.

'Finds Bag' won during token draw

All-in-all participating in the Wedderburn Detector Jamboree was a lot of fun and it is likely we will sign-up for similar events in the future wherever they may be.

Heather made a video about the weekend that can be viewed on YouTube via the attached link (below).

https://youtu.be/SnsCUKTGf5U

That’s all for this post from WTF? - Where are The Farrows?  In the next issue, we come across some interesting art on a grand scale during the drive back to home base.

Eyre Peninsula Coastline - Part 2: Western Eyre Peninsula

With the hot weather that is typical of February in South Australia having now arrived, part 2 of our journey commenced with a short jaunt to Coffin Bay just 50km away to the west of Pt. Lincoln across the bottom tip of Eyre Peninsula.  Coffin Bay is renowned for its oysters and as such, it was mandatory (in my mind at least), to enjoy some of the local product while we were in this pretty little town - so out to dinner we went!

Dressed for dinner at Coffin Bay

I enjoyed the oysters and vowed this would not be the last time I would enjoy a feed of these beauties on this trip!

From Coffin Bay we travelled in a north-westerly direction along the Eyre Peninsula coastline with stops at free camps and caravan parks along the way.  During this part of our journey we were continually in awe of the power of the sea, the beauty of the coastal cliffs and the solitude that could be found on any of the pristine beaches we stopped at along our route.

Our travels took us to a secluded stay at Sheringa Beach where we had the place to ourselves.  Heather tried some metal detecting on the beach but given its remoteness it was not surprising that there was nothing to be found there – not even the normally ever-present pull tabs discarded from drink cans.

Heather out metal detecting at sunset on Sheringa Beach

We passed through the town of Elliston but not before doing the ‘Elliston Great Ocean View’ self-drive tour.  The tour has you drive along the local cliff top road which provides great views of cliffs and rolling surf.  It also has some interesting sculptures positioned along the way.

Some of the cliff-top sculptures at Elliston

Our only non-coastal overnight stop during the outward-bound leg of the trip was at a place known as ‘Murphy’s Haystacks’.  These ‘Haystacks’ are actually outcropping granite boulders and they make for a great photo opportunity especially at sunrise and sunset.  As an added bonus the landowners had put some jars of honey produced by bees from the local Mallee flower pollen into an honesty box at the gate.  We bought a jar and it has a truly delicious flavour!  We will be certain to get some more the next time we are passing by.

Haystacks honey with Murphy's Haystacks in the background

We stayed a couple of days at Streaky Bay and took our time exploring the surrounding area including the Pt. Labatt sea lion colony, several surf beaches, seas with huge swells pounding into more coastal cliffs and blowholes.  It was well worth taking the time to look around.

Yet another spectacular surf beach (near Streaky Bay)

From Streaky Bay we moved on to Ceduna which is at the end of the ‘Seafood Frontier Route’.  Oysters from the Ceduna area, including Smoky Bay to the east and Denial Bay to the west, are HUGE!  I enjoyed a dozen of these monsters (I told you my oysters in Coffin Bay would not be the last), at a roadside Oyster Bar just outside of Ceduna.  So what if they are terrible for the cholesterol, they are too delicious to pass up!

 

Roadside 'Ceduna Oyster Bar' and a dozen of their finest!

While we were at the end of the Seafood Frontier Route we were not ready to turn around and head home just yet so we decided to make a run to the SA/WA border.  Along the way we stayed at Cactus Beach, Fowlers Bay, at the Head of the Bight near the town of Nullarbor and then finally at Border Village.  Spectacular coastal scenery, more world renown surf beaches, a windmill museum including the largest diameter windmill in the country, and a continuous 200km stretch of the 80m high Bunda Cliffs were some of the things we encountered along the way.

 

Australia's largest windmill (10m diameter) & Iconic Nullarbor road-sign

At Eastern Edge of the Nullarbor (treeless) Plain & Car at SA/WA border

After doing a U-turn at the border we commenced our return to Adelaide.  We spent a night back in Ceduna where we topped up the fuel tank and just happened to pick up half a dozen more fresh oysters which were cooked up for dinner that night.  Next day we stopped at Venus Bay and tried our luck fishing for squid in the hope of catching our own Calamari dinner.  We were not successful but no one can say we didn't try as we were out on the jetty well into the night in the wind and rain!
 

Unsuccessful Night Squidding

 
Two more nights out on the road then we arrived back home for a brief stop before hitting the road again on our next adventure.  'Where to next?', I hear you asking.  To find out WTF? - Where are The Farrows?, just click on the notification you receive when I next post and all will be revealed.

Eyre Peninsula Coastline - Part 1: Eastern Eyre Peninsula

Having decided to take some extended time away from work we were eager to hit the road and get some ‘Grey Nomad Training’ kilometres under our belts.  After some perusal of maps, tourist information and consideration of the expected stinking hot mid-summer weather conditions we decided that South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula coastline and the ‘Seafood Frontier Route’ was to be where we would spend the month of February.

Eyre Peninsula's 'Seafood Frontier' Route

We set off travelling north from Adelaide with the aid of a stiff southerly breeze – very good news when towing a caravan that is as aerodynamic as a barn wall.  Having a tailwind pushing against the back of the van was like having a sail unfurled which assisted the engine in moving us along for 300km until we reached Port Augusta and turned southwards.  From that point onwards the last 80km into Whyalla (and the first stop of our trip), was much harder work for the engine as we were now ‘dragging the barn’ straight into the teeth of the wind.

Whyalla is where I did the first 4 of my 5 years of university studies.  Since graduating almost 30 years ago I had not been back to Whyalla so it was nice to stop and have a look after all of these years.  Like most places you revisit after some time away, while there have definitely been some changes over the years everything still appears pretty much the same as I remembered it.

HMAS Whyalla - the first ship built at the Whyalla shipyard in 1940/41

After two nights in what was a very windy Whyalla we broke camp and travelled 150km to Port Gibbon which is located about 20km south of Cowell.  It was here that we were really fortunate to come across a pair of Sea Lions resting on the beach at Point Gibbon.  These very large creatures allowed us to get quite close and so long as we stayed a distance away that they were comfortable with we could have watched them from there all day.  It was an unexpected but great encounter with nature. 

Sea Lion encounter at Point Gibbon

Heather has also produced a video of our Sea Lion encounter which can be viewed on her YouTube channel via the link below (PS: this Sea Lion video is just one of many videos capturing the sights and sounds of our journey.  Take a look at a couple and click on 'Subscribe' if you like what you have seen.  Becoming a subscriber to Heather's channel will simply result in you being notified whenever she posts a new video - it won't result in you receiving any advertising or promotional 'spam' from anyone else.)

https://youtu.be/btoQf35geLI

Next overnight stop was Lipson Cove.  A beautiful beach and bay complete with seabird colony on a nearby offshore island which we were able to wade to at low tide.  Also present while we were there was a pod of 7 dolphins.  The dolphins stayed close to shore near our camp for most of the day – it was very nice just to look out at the water periodically and see them still slowly cruising the beach.

Following Lipson Cove was a stay in Port Lincoln located near the bottom (southern tip) of the Eyre Peninsula.    We spent 3 nights using Pt. Lincoln as our base where, after 6 days of very blustery conditions, some calm and hot weather finally arrived!

Beautiful view from our site at Pt. Lincoln Foreshore Caravan Park

We explored the town itself including its foreshore and commercial fishing marina.  Pt. Lincoln is home to a large seafood fishing fleet where they catch and process tuna, abalone, prawns, and crayfish/southern rock lobster.

Some of the Pt. Lincoln fishing fleet in the marina

One of the highlights of the trip was a day trip from our Pt. Lincoln caravan park to Whalers Way.  This former whaling station is where the coastline along the relatively sheltered and shallow waters of Spencer Gulf ends and exposure to the full power of the Southern Ocean begins.

Cliffs and the Southern Ocean at Whalers Way

The rugged coastal scenery and deserted beaches we saw at Whalers Way was just a taste of what of the western Eyre Peninsula coastline was to offer.

Stayed tuned for WTF? – Where are The Farrows? and Eyre Peninsula Coastline – Part 2.

Silverton

The town of Silverton was established early in the 1880’s on the back of prospectors seeking their fortunes from mining claims they had staked in the district.

Mining, Ore Tramway and Movie history reflected in the 'Silverton' sign.

In 1883 the name of the town was proclaimed and a post office was built.  The population boomed from 250 up to 3000 within two years.  With the growth in population came the typical list of supporting businesses and services (both necessary and parasitic) that go hand in hand with mining town development.  These included doctors, law (police) and order (solicitors and judges), power-brokers (local politicians), newspapers, hotels, religion and all manner of entrepreneurs looking to make a buck in the thriving mining town.

Unfortunately for Silverton’s longer term growth, in 1885 and just 25km away in Broken Hill, the discovery of silver, lead and zinc deposits (which subsequently proved to be the largest in the world) meant that Silverton’s population had already peaked.  People moved to Broken Hill and the town started to decline just a few short years after being established.  With a general shortage of building materials available in the greater Broken Hill area, many of Silverton’s buildings were dismantled and transported to Broken Hill and rebuilt there. 

While the miners are long gone a few significant historic buildings still remain, and just 40 people currently live in Silverton but it appears to have found a new lease of life.  With its clear blue skies, ‘Outback Red’ landscapes and classic 1800’s stone buildings, the location has attracted filmmakers from afar.  Since about 1980 the town has hosted dozens of movie and TV productions.  These include Mad Max 2, and Priscilla Queen of the Desert, amongst others.

The Silverton Hotel seems to feature in just about everything that happens here from movies through to where a visitor will eat when they are in town.

At lunchtime there were more people inside than live in the town!

The pub attracts everyone and on the day we were here there was more than the town population inside having lunch.  Not bad for a ghost town!

Of the 40 residents here, there are a number of artists.  In our travels along the Darling River we came upon the work of Lightning Ridge artist John Murray, who proved to have a bit of a thing for Emus (remember the sculpture of Stanley the Emu, and other cartoon like paintings with Emus featuring strongly).  In Silverton one of the local artists ‘in residence’ is Howard Steer who has quite the strong sense of ‘bush humour’ and appears to have a thing for the Flying Doctor – not the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS), which he no doubt strongly supports, but a ‘Flying Doctor’ complete with medical bag and his own pair of wings, that he includes in almost every painting he does.  An example of what I am talking about can be seen in the photo of a painting that he did on the side of a broken down old car that is positioned at the entrance to his gallery in Silverton.  The painting is called 'Flying Doctor's New Website'.  If you click on the image to enlarge you will see a couple of spider webs in the branches of the trees.  That's bush humour for you.

Flying Doctor's New Website - Painting on car door at entrance to gallery

For more examples of his work you can click on the link provided at the bottom of this blog.

With that I shall sign off for this episode of WTF? – Where are The Farrows? and will also conclude this 'Darling River Run' series as we will arrive back home in the next day or so.  I hope you have enjoyed the posts and that the style of writing has not become boring.  Until our next adventure, please take care of yourselves and the ones you love.

http://www.howardsteerart.com.au/gallery.php

Broken Hill

As well as being directly on our route home, the town of Broken Hill is the ‘birthplace’ of my one and only employer (The Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd or ‘BHP’) since I was 17 years old.  BHP was formed 132 years ago in 1885 and has since grown and spread across the globe to be, at the time of writing, the largest diversified mining house in the world. 

Having never stopped in Broken Hill to look around we went straight to the tourist information centre and grabbed some brochures describing a range of ‘Things to Do’ while in the neighbourhood.  We opted to do a self-drive tour of the town.  A ‘Point of Interest’ included in the tour was the site of the first BHP Office ever established which we duly visited.  Not much left anymore except for ruins of part of the fireplace chimney and a brass plaque saying who built it and when.  Don't know what I was expecting but it was something more than this...

All that remains of BHP's first office is chimney ruins and a small brass plaque

Feel free to Click to enlarge pic if you wish to read and get a few more details

With my pilgrimage to the birthplace of the ‘mothership’ now underwhelmingly complete we continued our explorations of the town which included plenty of mining history and monuments, the art galleries of some of the more well-known artists that call or called Broken Hill home, e.g.: Pro Hart, Jack Absalom, etc..  Also part of the tour was a visit to the Living Desert Reserve and the Sculpture Site that is within it.

Several sandstone sculptures on top of a hill in the Living Desert Reserve

 

12 sandstone sculptures were installed as part of a sculpture symposium held on the hilltop in 1993 by artists from around the world.  As with most art, some pieces made more sense or resonated better with me than others.  Being totally honest I must confess that a couple of them (maybe more than a couple) still just looked like blocks of stone standing on a hilltop - which is exactly what they are.  Score one point for logic, but zero for artistic interpretation!

After a few hours of driving around becoming geographically, historically and culturally aware we returned to our ‘campsite’ for the day which was actually a parking spot in front of the grandstand of the Broken Hill racecourse.  It turned out to be very nice, having green grass underfoot (not much of that to be found in Broken Hill), and sharing a drink and some nibbles with a couple of our neighbours of the day before turning in for the night.

Not the bush camp setting we were used to but the green grass was a nice change

In the morning we were woken by the sound of hooves and the snorting of horses in training during the cool just before dawn.  Now awake, I decided to get up and watch them pace around the dirt track and managed to snap a nice photo of the finishing post with the rising sun right behind it.



Mining Headframes form part of the Finishing Post at Broken Hill Racecourse

 

With our next overnight stop not very far away we enjoyed a leisurely coffee before hitching up the caravan once more and moving on.

The next episode of WTF? – Where are The Farrows? see us in the busiest ghost town (and location for quite a few movies) we have come across yet!

Cobar and Warrawong on the Darling (near Wilcannia)

It was when we pulled out of Gulargambone that we really commenced our journey westward towards home back in Adelaide.  Almost all of the remaining 1,300 kilometres across NSW and SA would be on the Barrier Highway.

Rather than make a mad dash home we took a more leisurely approach and spread the journey over 6 days and 5 nights.  In this blog I will describe the first two days and nights.

First overnight stop was at a pleasant free camp site called Newey Reserve in the town of Cobar.  Cobar is home to about 5,000 people but as it was a Sunday when we rolled into town, it was very quiet and seemed much smaller.  The town was established to support mining and pastoral activities in the area.  That mining has been and still is a big part of the town’s economy is obvious as soon as you approach the town from the east.  A mining scene adorned with very large letters spelling out COBAR makes it clear that you have arrived in a mining town.

Just in case you don't know where you are - Welcome to COBAR!

After securing a position for the caravan on the shore of the Newey Reservoir we drove about town to what there was to see and stopped at the grocery store in town for some supplies (and to support the local economy in appreciation for the free camp sites provided), then it was back to camp for a leisurely Sunday afternoon.

The following morning we hit the road again and drove about 260 kilometres further west to a caravan park called ‘Warrawong on the Darling’, just a kilometre out of the town of Wilcannia.  The place has powered and unpowered sites as well as 'bush camping' sites further out on the property.  We chose a bush camping site on the bank of a nearby billabong as our patch of ground for the night.
 

Nothing like a seat beside the campfire as the sun goes down!

After setting up for the day and night, which comprised nothing more than parking on a level piece of ground, un-hitching the caravan from the ute and switching it to gas and solar power, we took a drive on some of the property roads to check out a very large and very old River Red Gum tree on the bank of the Darling River.

 

‘Big Red’ as it had been dubbed is over 11m in circumference and has been determined to be about 500 years old.  Heather, ever alert for a metal detecting opportunity with real potential, promptly got her metal detector out of the truck upon arrival and took a quick swing around the base of the giant. 

Heather was dwarfed by 'Big Red' as she searched for lost treasures!

At over 500 years old and 11m around the base Big Red is a mighty tree!

The 'opportunity with real potential', for those that don't know what I am talking about, arises from the fact that big old trees along the banks of rivers were often used as shady resting spots or campsites by passers-by.  Whenever they sat down and/or got up from a fallen branch or root beneath the tree, often was the case that a coin would fall out of their trouser pocket (same thing today when you sit down or get up off of the couch)!  An old silver sixpence or shilling or maybe even a gold sovereign is what Heather was hoping to find.  Unfortunately, Big Red was giving up nothing from her past that day and Heather returned to camp empty handed.

 

Although other campers and caravanners had made a similar choice to set themselves up on the edge of the billabong, it was a large waterhole so our nearest neighbour was at least 200m away.  With that sort of separation we were able to enjoy the serenity of the bush and enjoy a 'Sundowner' while watching the pelicans hunt for their evening meal.  As the sun dipped further below the western horizon the light from our campfire became ever brighter.  Not long after that the stars came out to play... in case you hadn't guessed by now, we really like camping out in the bush!

 

 

Watching the pelicans out fishing in the billabong at sunset

When I next put pen to paper (so to speak), we will likely be within a day’s drive of home.  Stand-by to read all about what we come across as our WTF? – Where are The Farrows? Darling River Run adventure draws closer to its conclusion.