I was a bit sorry to leave Stansbury, I had a very relaxing time there and it was very interesting to be able to watch a silo being painted from the beginning. This is the photo I took on my first day at Stansbury.
As a drove away from Stansbury I took this photo, which will give you an idea of the amazing progress the two artists had made in just eight days, actually just seven days and an hour or so on day eight.
Finishing the artwork will require some finer detail but I expect that they should be finished in a week to ten days, depending on the weather.
I headed up and across the peninsula to Kadina where there was a relatively small water tower in the middle of town. It took me some time to get to the tower because there were many one way streets in town that were not on my GPS, just as well I have a small caravan. The GPS kept sending me to streets I couldn’t enter. There were only two images on the tower, the first is a Maypole girl holding some grain, as grain was and is the main driver of the economy on the Yorke peninsula. She is also holding a piece of copper as copper mining was also big on the Yorke peninsula (this area is called the Copper Coast)
The other image was of a steam train, reflecting the important role that rail played in the transport of grain to the ports on the Yorke peninsula, and poppies for remembrance (the railway line ran next to the carpark).
The Kadina water tower was in a busy car park, but there was reserved parking for RV’s and caravans, just as well, because the car park was chockers. From Kadina I headed for Snowtown, the town famous for the bodies in 44 gallon drums, I made sure the streets were clear before I got out of the car! The now disused water tower was another small one with the fireman’s face a stand out, it depicts a volunteer with over 25 years service with the CFS. This side faced the road.
The other side had a young footballer on the top section of the tower but this was not as good as the fireman.
My Journey now is taking me away from the Yorke peninsula and east across through the windy roads of the Clare valley and up through Burra and then onto flat country as I head toward the Riverland. The drive through to Clare and Burra was more interesting with undulating countryside and a lot more trees, but the travelling was a bit slower with lots of bends. The next stop, this time for silos, was Farrell Flat, which was the last artwork to see before I reached the Riverland around Renmark and Loxton.
The town is a ghost town, I was the only thing moving, apart from the trees in the strong wind! The only operating business in town was an old dilapidated pub, a couple of old and closed shops made up what passes as the commercial centre of Farrell Flat. The group of silos are at the end of the main street.
It is interesting that they have chosen to paint a passenger train but, apparently, the artwork depicts the last train that ran on the line in the 1990s. The rail line was between Rosebery and Peterborough with the latter being a major railway hub and service centre.
Driving through the flat wheat growing parts of SA is not a highlight. The countryside is an unrelenting dull brown, flat, few if any trees, average to poor quality roads and a lot of the small towns you pass through lack any shops and anything of interest. There is an overall appearance of tiredness and neglect, except in the larger towns as such Clare, Burra, Kadina and Yorketown. The wind on this day was extremely strong and the fuel consumption went up significantly. At Kadina I had to take a step back to keep balance in a particularly strong gust, while I was taking photos.
When I get to the Riverland I will be staying at Kingston on Murray, so called because there is another Kingston in SA, Kingston SE, which is located on the south coast near the Victorian border.