Silo Art Tour

Day 1

As a treat for my visit, Briony searched out for a suitable tour round some of Victoria’s glorious Silo art, she lucked out in finding a 5 day silo art tour run by Tour Local from nearby Pakenham. Graeme and I, (unfortunately Briony was unable to join us on this trip) we were collected from outside the front door just after 8:00am and after a short trip collecting some fellow passengers in our area, we headed to Springvale to join the rest of our tour group and our guide Sue and driver Mike.

Our first stop was in the town of Avoca, where after a nice fish and chips lunch in a local cafe/diner, I really loved the choice of pies on offer, especially the Barbequed Emu and Camel in Honey Soy options. We then went round the corner to see our first silo art installation. This fine piece, painted in 2021 by Jimmi Buscombe depicts a Barking Owl. Jimmi returned in 2022 to add a ‘glow in the dark’ element which has certainly added to the piece.

NB Jimmi was the artist who in 2018 created the hugely popular drawing on a railway bridge in Warrnambool shows a wombat seemingly emerging from a hole in the bridge.

Our next stop was in the town of St Arnaud to view ‘Hope’ by Kyle Torney, a local artist who has also created 15 excellent murals of local residents on building dotted around town, mostly in a monochromatic style, which I really like to see.

We then made our way to Horsham, our first overnight stop, and after checking in to our rooms in the Golden Grain Motel, we went next door to the Vic Hotel for our evening meal and a beer before retiring for the night.

Day 2

Following our breakfast in the motel, we visited a large couple of murals by Glasgow based Smug, originally created in May 2022, the first silo tells the story of Yanggendyinanyuk, a notable figure in the Wimmera region of Victoria. Yanggendyinanyuk, also known as ‘Dick-a-Dick’, was a skilled tracker, talented cricketer, and cultural exponent. The second shows his totem, the red tailed cockatoo on the old Flour Mill. It was interesting to note that he had been back to add a mural of local of foliage on the shed in front of the murals providing a link to them all. NB the final image shown below is one taken for me by a drone operator in 2023.

From Horsham we made our way to Murtoa to visit another Smug mural, this time commemorating Murtoa-born, Dr. John Cade, a Psychiatrist who identified that 1 in 30 Australians suffer from mental health issues, Smug used images of 30 types of native birds to represent that number.

Whilst in the Murtoa area we paid a visit to the vast Murtoa Stick Shed which is an impressive sight worth making the effort to visit.  Built as a wartime emergency grain store, the now-heritage listed shed was the first of its kind to be built in Victoria, and the last grain stick shed in use in Australia.  Built between 1941 and 1942, it was designed to store a massive 92,500 tonnes of wheat when exporting was affected by WWII. This was my second visit to the shed and I still found it to be a worthwhile place to visit.

Our next stop was Rapanyup intending to see the murals by Russian artist Julia Volchkova which I first saw in 2023. But, by some weird coincidence Smug was there painting over them with a stunning mural showing the nearby canola fields. It was really good to meet with Sam and to watch him work as many of the others in the group were asking how the murals were created. I much prefer the new mural, but perhaps I am prejudiced as I know Smug and love his work.

After our visit and chat with Smug, coffee time was interesting having it in the Wood’s Farming & Heritage Museum, I first visited in 2023 finding the museum to be a fabulous place to visit, jammed full of interesting articles collected by 5 generations of the Woods family.

We visited a couple of other small towns on our way to Sea Lake, our stop for the night. On the way we stopped for lunch in the town of Minyip, The town was featured as “Coopers Crossing” in the long running Australian TV series “The Flying Doctors”, there was a nice mural in town highlighting this.

Our next stop was to visited the silos painted at Sheeps Hill by Matt Adnate, a spectacular mural of two Elders beside two young children. I enjoy seeing Matt’s work, which can be found all over Australia, I especially like his work on The Adnate, one of the Art series hotels which can be found in Perth.

Onward we travelled to Brim to see the very first silos painted in Victoria in January 2016 by Guido Van Helten, this mural in his familiar monochromatic style, features 4 local farmers, despite seeing these on my previous visit to the area, I still enjoyed seeing them again.

Our next stop was in the town of Rosbery to see a pair of silos painted by Kaff-einne, again her style was fairly monochromatic, but her subtle use of colour added to the effect.

We also stopped for a time in Woomerlang, the birth place of Nick Cave, to see a series of small portable silos showing local wildlife painted by various artists including Jimmy Dvate.

Our accommodation for the night in Sea Lake, was in a new motel, Lake Tyrrell Accommodation, which was quite funky. A series of rooms built around a central common area fitted out for barbecuing and dining, all covered by a canvas dome. This arrangement was repeated with the common area set up for games and music. Once settled in we gathered together for a meet and greet with drinks and nibbles before going to a local cafe/diner for dinner. Graeme was delighted by the choice of location as it also doubled as an arcade cafe, and after dinner he and Mike the driver had great fun playing on some of the consoles.

When we arrived in town it was too dark to see the silo there properly, but at night they display a light show on them, so a group of us made our way to watch it. It was a really nice way to finish off another excellent day.

Day 3

Our tour got off early as we popped round the corner to view the Sea Lake silo murals painted by Joel Fergie “The Zookeeper” and Travis Vinson “Drapl“, who also created a number of murals around town. These silos show a young girl swinging from a tree while looking out over Lake Tyrrell, with a large Eagle soars above her.

Our next stop at Nullawil delighted us with yet another excellent mural by Smug this time depicting Jimmy the Kelpie dog sitting with his owner Darren.

Just like our stop at Woods museum, we keep finding fascinating places to visit, this time it was to the Spanner Man of Boort. Displayed in a beautiful country garden are over 25 unique life size and larger than life sculptures, including an iconic shearer, a family of deer, a pair of fighting stallions, a mallee bull, intricate garden seats and many more. John Piccoli made the sculptures by welding together antique through to modern day spanners. The tallest sculpture, “ The Marlin”, is over 7 m tall, weighs 1200 kgs and is made from 3500 spanners. On arrival we were met by Andrew, the son of John, who showed us a video of his late father explaining how, as a young polio sufferer in a wheelchair, started creating art and sculptures from something as simple as spanner’s. The grounds surrounding the main house were full of his spectacular sculptures, all created using all types of spanner’s, old farming equipment and vehicles from all ages. It was a truly wonderful place to stop and spend some time.

Our lunch stop was then in the town of Wedderburn, an old gold prospecting town where the Hand of Faith, one of the world’s gold largest nuggets at 27.2kg, worth around $3.5 million today, was found in 1980. The town also hosted “Birds Eye View”, a series of murals of birds of the region painted by Andrew Bourke, Jimmy Dvate and Bryan Itch, the paintings on Wedderburn Uniting church on the main street is quite beautiful.

Colbinnabin was our next stop to see a set of silos painted by Tim Bowtell, Tim’s style, technique and materials appeared to be different to those we have seen previously, but comes together to create stunning pieces highlighting life in the area in times gone past.

Leaving Colbinnabin behind, we headed north to Rochester to view a wonderfully colourful series of silos painted by Jimmy Dvate of local wildlife. I really love his work, his representations are so realistic bringing the birds and animals to life. (It was such a pity the sun was shining so brightly that we couldn’t capture good images, not a normal complaint from a Scotsman)

We pushed on after Rochester and made our way to the border town of Echuca to check in to our accommodation, The Settlement Motel. Our evening meal tonight was across the state line into New South Wales at the Moama RSL to partake of their carvery offering, we were told that we would find it hard to finish our meal and this proved to be true, our servings were immense.

Day 4

We had a leisurely start to the day today, our breakfast was in Beechworth’s, a local bakery along the street from our motel, their big breakie roll was truly wonderful and a great start to the day. I was truly surprised to notice a large mural across from our hotel on my way to breakfast, I discovered that it was painted in 2021 by Shaun Devenney, another Glasgow based artist. We then took the coach down to the Echuda Dock to board the PS Canberra for our cruise down the Murray River. The PS Canberra, a 110-year-old paddle steamer powered by a 1923 wood-fired steam engine, was a great way to see the river and a great addition to our trip, it was like being on a miniature version of our PS Waverley, I even got a chance to put my helmsman skills to the test.

After our cruise, we made our way to the lovely little town of Tongala, a town which in 2021 was voted the #1 street art town in Australia, with over 50 murals, many painted by Murray Ross, a local who we met when we had lunch provided by the local Lions club. I took great pleasure in watching Murray drawing a fun sketch for me whilst I chatted to him, he then created a drawing of a paddle steamer on the river, which we all received a copy for at the end of our trip. Murray then boarded our bus and took us around the murals dotted around town, it was really good to meet such a talented and generous guy.

The next stop on the trip was in Picola, to view yet another Jimmy Dvate mural of a Superb Parrot he painted in 2020, it was certainly up to his usual high standard.

From there it was a short hop (Aussie short!) to our next silo at Katamatite, this mural by Tim Bowtell, again depicts rural life in a style similar to the one he painted in Colbinnabin on Wednesday. Silo and artwork visits complete we then drove to Yarrawonga to the Lakeview Motel, our stop for the night, we arrived in the late afternoon and it was so nice to just sit in the sun and relax a bit before going out for our evening meal in the Mulwala RSL.

We had a couple of stops on our way back to Melbourne, the first being at Tungamah to see a fine silo painted by Sobrane, whilst in the town we popped into the local community store with its colourful murals, again painted by Sobrane when she was in the town.

We quickly made our way to the silos at St James, to see a group of silos, painted by Tim Bowtell, one silo in particular shows Sir George Coles who grew up in the St James township and took over the St James General Store from his father, expanding it to the empire it is today.

The other murals depict St James’ grain transporting history over the years. This was Tim’s first commission for Silo Art, but as we witnessed during our tour, it was not his last.

Our next stop was in the village of Devenish to view some military themed silos Melbourne Street Artist Cam Scale.

The two tall silos were officially unveiled on Anzac Day in 2018, to celebrate the 100-year centenary of the end of the First World War and depicts an image of a WW1 nurse and a modern female military medic in the Australian Armed Forces.

The shorter silo was unveiled one year later on Anzac Day 2019. This mural is a tribute to the Australian Light Horse, who served in the Second Boer War and WW 1. In addition to the silo art, there are also two fine murals by Tim Bowtell in the village with a military theme.

For the final stop on our Silo Art Mural Trail, we visited the small town of Goorambat, at silo complex there we saw three painted silos, in 2018 Jimmy Dvate painted Milli, a Barking Owl who lives at a nearby wildlife Sanctuary, in addition to a farming scene on one of the short silos.

In 2019 Jimmy returned to paint another short silo is a magnificent tribute to three Clydesdale horses Clem, Sam, and Banjo. Jimmy has captured the motion of these horses in gallop, feathers flying on their feet as they travel side by side in harness.

No visit to Goorambat would be complete without a visit to the tiny Uniting Church in the town to see a striking mural of ‘Sophia’, painted by Matt Adnate in 2017.

After leaving Goorambat behind, we started our return journey to Melbourne and it’s suburbs, stopping off in Benalla for lunch. As we had a longish journey back, we had no time to stop to see the many murals dotted around the town, but we did manage to drive round to see some of them on our way out, this has certainly whetted my appetite to return on my next visit to Melbourne to see them.

I thoroughly enjoyed this tour, and would certainly recommend it to anyone, it was well managed by Sue at all time, our driver Mike provided a smooth journey, and both of them kept us well informed on the highlights of the areas we visited, their local knowledge was much appreciated. The choice of accommodation and catering throughout was perfect for our needs, and the other members of our group made this trip all the more enjoyable, it was wonderful to see others interest in a subject I love, and I thank them for sharing in that joy (also for allowing me to use some of their photographs on this page.). To have spent the 5 days with my son Graeme made this trip even more special since we normally live so far apart.