Back to Tasmania

Broken Hill is over 800 kilometers from Melbourne. We decided to add a few kilometers and travel down the 200 kilometre Wimmera Silo Arts Trail.

The 200 kilometre run included 6 small country towns that arranged for their wheat silos to be painted by street artists. Each artist visited the town for a number of weeks, got involved with the local life and then product their art work.

We started at the top and travelled south through Patchewollock, Lascelles, Rosebery, Brim and Rupanyup. We missed the turn for Sheep Hills and so missed out on that mural.

Patchewollock. Brisbane Artist Fintan Magee. Study – local guy – Nick “Noodle” Hulland.
Lascelles. Artist – Rone from Melbourne. Study – local farmer Geoff Horman.
and, on the other side – Merrilyn Horman.
Rosebery. Artist – Kaffe-eine from Melbourne. Objective. To show the grit and tenacity of young female farmers and a quiet moment between dear friends.
Brim. Artist Guido Van Helten. Objective. To show the strength of 4 anonymous farmers.
Rupanyup. Artist – Julia Volchkova from Russia. The work shows 2 young people from the town in their sports gear. Strength and Hope from the younger generation

The art trail is breathing life back into the towns. Cafes have sprung up or kept going, veggie stalls appeared and art for sale abounds. It probably hasn’t hurt the caravan parks, camp grounds and service stations either.

Two days later we exited the Ferry at Devonport to a newly greened Tasmania. When I left it was brown but the autumn rains have changed that. The green fields were overlaid with frost at 7am as we set off for Longford. Welcome to late Autumn – nearly winter.

Author: antc1946

Born in 1946 I learnt to cycle about 10 years later. On a bike with rods connecting brake levers to the brakes - anyone remember those? I emigrated to Australia (from the UK) in 1974 and moved to Tasmania in 1984. Bicycles were in my life for most of that time although sometimes they were replaced by motorised two wheels for a bit more excitement. On reaching 70 I decided to stick to pedal power but in 2019 an electric recumbent made an appearance. it's now 2023 and I have 3 bikes. 2 e-recumbents and the Brompton.

6 thoughts on “Back to Tasmania”

  2. Glad you made it safely home. Still waiting for some green here.

    Our Council area has lots of silos, and local residents wanted to jump on the bandwagon… but, the maintenance costs over time on those murals is quite prohibitive so our Council staff have tried to dissuade the citizens advocating for them. Apparently, the increased business revenue doesn’t really match maintenance costs over time.

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    1. Hi Emily. That’s interesting re maintenance. I wondered if any would be done or would the murals just be left to weather. There would also be some work to manage the car parks and rubbish removal although the people we saw looking at them were being very tidy. It’s a shame if it proves too expensive as I think it gives the community a boost. EG Coonalpyn in SA. There is a lot more art work out and about following the silo murals, the caravan park and Cafes were busy and the community are obviously proud to add more art to their town.

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