More silos!

We had an awesome time playing tourist with friends in Melbourne. We got to see and do so much - it was a brilliant week!

After dropping them to the airport early in the morning, we returned to the apartment and packed up our gear for a more leisurely departure just before the usual check-out time.

We were heading for the NSW South Coast and Nick had planned a full day's driving to get there.  Benalla seemed a good lunch stop and in checking for a cafe, I discovered a nearby silo.

I'd seen photos of these silos but hadn't given much thought to whether we'd be able to visit.  Even when we got our lunch, I was only expecting to see the first one.

Nick spotted a mud map at Goorambat that showed the location of several other silo sites. We deviated from our original plan to visit Devenish, St James and Tungamah.

The silos we had previously visited in Western Victoria were no longer in use so access to them was open. These sites were on active rail-lines, so were fenced off to provide safe areas for viewing.

Since visiting in mid-September, Sobrane has undertaken more work beside the kookaburra.

Each site had a donation tin and I used my gold coin collection to give evenly to all the communities.

Winton Wetlands was the last stop on our detour.  It took a bit to find what we were looking for but we enjoyed the drive.  If we had longer, we would definitely explore more of the area.

Guido van Helten was the artist who painted the Brim silos (the first we visited in 2016).  The water tank at the Wetlands is another of his wonderful works.

Info about the Silo Art Trail in Western Victoria is here.  A map of the North Eastern silos is here.

Boort, Boort, Boort!

We stayed in a motel on the outskirts of Bendigo, preparing ourselves for an early-ish departure to Boort (about an hour and a half away). I knew about the "spanner man" but hadn't expected we'd visit this road-trip.  It was a most marvelous detour!

As much as I enjoyed viewing all the wonderful works, I really liked John and hearing his stories.  His spanner collection was amazing!

If you are anywhere sort-of close to Boort, we highly recommend you visit! (We paid $10 each and it was definitely money well spent).

We lingered for a couple of hours before driving back to Bendigo.  After lunch we made our way to Redesdale to see another painted water tank. 

There was some GPS silliness along the way, with our lady delivering us to a dirt road adjacent a sheep paddock and announcing that we'd arrived at our destination!  Er, no - try again.

We had a quick look and then continued to Melbourne so as to check into our flash apartment, clear the car and collect our friends from the airport!

Central Deborah Gold Mine

During our Victorian Era we saw various sites associated with the gold rush.  We did a walk-in mine tour at Maldon (which prompted a daytrip to Quartz Moutain) and even found a geocache in an abandoned mine!  Although we visited Bendigo several times, we hadn't toured the much larger Central Deborah Gold Mine at Bendigo.

Nick and I arrived in Bendigo just before the afternoon mine experience tour. We spent some time on the surface looking at the buildings and then met our guide to descend 61 metres underground - deeper than we'd ever been!

There are other longer (and more expensive) tours that descend even further below the surface but we were quite happy with what we did.

Highs and silos!

When Nick first suggested driving down to Melbourne (where we were holidaying for a week with friends), I wasn't keen. As I thought more about the drive though, I saw the potential for an inland road trip.

It was just the two of us, so we drove in the red car - with the back seats down to hold more gear.

Our adventure started early on the day of departure - cos Nick was booked for an eye injection after night-shift.  In the circumstances I was the driver from home to Moree, our first night's stop.

Soaking in the thermal pools had been high on my wishlist.  We had an extended wallow not long after arrival and I managed a quickish dip the next morning also.

We hadn't booked accommodation beyond the first night and our half-plan for the next night was altered around morning tea time on Day 2.  Plan B saw us heading to Rochester (after our excellent Finley bakery lunch break) to view two more silos.

While ordering our award-winning pies at the bakery, the lady serving us complimented me on my camera and suggested we view the mural in one of the town's sidestreets.  We're glad we did!

The Brim silos were painted during our "Victorian Era" and we visited them in April 2016, only a few months after completion.  More silos were painted after those and we viewed them in December of the same year - as a 750km day-trip!  I was aware of other silos being completed after our relocation to Queensland but hadn't considered we'd get to see them on this trip.

Nick suggested the detour to Rochester and we were super impressed with the beautiful artwork there.  The sugar glider had been painted on the concrete silo while the kingfisher was on a metal tank.  Those textures increased the impact of the two subjects.  The glider almost seemed to have softer fur, whereas the kingfisher's feathers were more crisply defined.  Both were gorgeous!