Deen and I arrived at Morning Glory on the Friday of Melbourne Cup weekend for a 10 day stay that included meeting up with our friends for the 51st time at cup weekend. We were booked in the camp here for our 50th year but Morning Glory was flooded. Here are a couple of photos, the first is of the toilet block near our camp showing the camping area flooded. The second is of the road into Morning Glory with the resort ute parked in the edge of the flood waiting for supplies coming down the road in a small boat.
Our camp sites were right on the edge of the Murray so we could face out from the camp away from the many cup weekend campers. Our friends were not to arrive until the following Wednesday and Thursday so Deen and I set off to Katamatite to see a Jimmy D’Vate silo and it was worth the trip, he paints so precisely and does birds really well, he is my favourite silo artist. I was hoping that the nearby concrete silos had been painted since my last trip but they were not even started.
The detailing of the feathers of the parrot are just so good.
The image of the Barmah wetlands is similarly excellent with the reflections in the water adding an extra dimension.
From here we headed to Katamatite to see the silo art there. The artwork was OK but the artist appeared to have been unable to allow for the change of curve on the silos so the train has an unusual bend that detracted from the whole image in my opinion, but the rest of the artwork is good
We had our regulation BBQ picnic at a picnic area in Katamatite where the eagle sculpture, made out of discarded farm equipment pieces, was remarkable and very good. The eagle is carrying a rabbit to feed two baby eagles in the nest.
Over the weekend we drove to Cape Horn Winery where the place was really buzzing. It is now owned by the people who own Morning Glory and they have developed it from a small operation into a major tourist attraction. The wine is till excellent but at least twice as expensive as it used to be – $35 for a bottle of chardonnay. The winery is of a big U bend in the Murray, hence the Cap Horn name.
It was a very hot day so we stayed in the very large covered area and enjoyed wood-fired pizzas, but most people were out on the lawns enjoying the beautiful weather and the music.
Other than these excursions we drove around a bit checking the car trial detail we had written for last year and enjoyed a picnic in the Barmah forest.