Benalla District Silo & Water Tower Art

It is encouraging to see everything nice and green in this part of Victoria and the crops are looking perfect for this time of the year and they just had a good fall of rain.

I started Tuesday by heading off to Winton Wetlands where Lake Mokoan has been drained and they are working on re-establishing the wetlands.  It is a hugh area but at the moment it is mostly covered with dead red gums killed when the wetlands were flooded a long time ago.  The lake was too shallow for its irrigation purpose so killing all those trees and devastating the ecology was for no good purpose.  Anyway the recovery process is in place.

I visited public art on a CFA water tank in the middle of the dry lake, excellent painting of three CFA volunteers, but now two a damaged by water leakage.  Along the dirt road in, you travel on Boggy Bridge Road where there are some painted fish trees.

After this excursion I stopped for a delicious breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, sourdough toast, orange juice and coffee at the Mokoan Cafe on the shores of the old lake, but there are trees around the cafe so it is an attractive location.  From here I traveled 50 odd Km north to Tungamah for the first silo painted in 2018 by Sobrane a female WA artists reputed to be the first woman to paint a silo.

I then turned south to St James to see a group of paintings of country life from the past.  We have two farmers sewing wheat bags and a retailer.

There were two other silos depicting a carrier in an old truck and another carrier with a team of clydesdales.

The photos below show in more detail the face of the retailer, which has excellent detail and one of the farmers.

Now off to Devenish where a renowned silo artist Cam Scale has painted three silos depicting army nurses.

From here I travelled to the last silo art site at Goorambat where a female aspect of the holy spirit is represented in ‘Sophia’ is in the Uniting Church in the town, painted by Adnate.

The silos in the town are also excellent painted by Jimmy Dvate and show Clydesdales and the threatened Barking Owl.

The gum tree has a tree hollow that Barking Owls use for nesting and it is the loss of this habitat that is threatening the survival of the owl.  It was a pity that most of the silos are privately owned and fenced off so it is hard to get a good angle for taking photos, especially in the morning with a low sun.

My journey continues through Deniliquin to to visit two more water tower sites with the night spent at Urana Showgrounds.