The North East Silo Art Trail is the second silo trail we have done. The first was the Silo Art Trail out of Horsham back in 2014. The North East Silo Trail starts just out of Benalla and includes the small towns of Goorambat, Devenish, St James, and Tungamah. At Tungamah, it turns back to Benalla via the Winton Wetlands. We did the trip in January with heavy, heavy smoke haze from the Gippsland bushfires and a few closer to home.

Goorambat

Following the downloadable map, we set off from Benalla, covering the northeast silo art trail for the 132km trail. With frequent stops to photograph the silos in tiny ghost towns and take in a picnic at Winton Wetlands, the drive took 4 hours by the time we completed it.

Our first stop was Goorambat Silo featuring the work of Jimmy Dvate, who created the Barking Owl and Clydesdale horses

Just a few minutes further up the road is the Goorambat Uniting Church. The church is open every day, and fortunately, they don’t mind you coming in to photograph the mural in the church by Adnate

Devenish

From Goorambat, it was a short 13km hop to the Devenish Silos. Completed in April 2018 for the purpose of coinciding with the 100th centenary of the end of the First World War, they depict a modern-day combat medic, a WWI nurse and a WWI Light horseman. The art is the work of Cam Scale.

St James

Retreating back in the coolness of the car we made for St James – just a short hop of 8.6kms down the road.

The St James silo’s are the work of local artist Tim Bowtell and tell the story of George Coles, the founder of the Coles supermarket empire. George bought the local shop from his father in St James in 1900 before moving to Tasmania and opening another shop. This was followed by another in Collingwood in 1914, and the rest, as they say in the classics, is history.

Tungamah

The last silo’s on this run were 13kms north at Tungamah with the artwork by West Australian artist Sobrane Simcock. They feature dancing Brolga’s, Kookaburra’s and Galah’s, all local to the low-lying swamps. This silo was notably the first silo in the North East trail and the first by an Australian female silo artist.

Winton Wetlands

Turning southwards, back towards Benalla, we headed for the Winton Wetlands 60kms away. It was edging closer to lunchtime, and we planned a picnic at Winton Wetlands. However, the temperature outside the car had climbed to the high 30s, laden with heavy smoke haze, to say nothing of the plague of flies waiting for us. So we decided under the circumstances, a picnic in the car was an excellent idea. With the motor running to keep the aircon pumping, of course.

Contrary to its name, the wetlands are far from wet. On the other hand, maybe they are wetter in winter or spring. But in the middle of the worst drought, Australia has seen in decades, the entire place is dry as dust.

We entered via the Boggy Bridge road driving past Martins Barge and the Boggy Bridge Fish Trees.

The fish trees depict the long-gone Giant Murray Cod that used to swim in the areas of the wetlands.

We followed the road to what we decided would be our final destination of the day – the CFA water tank. The tank features the faces of three CFA volunteers on its side. It seemed to be an omen on one that, bearing in the mind the current climate of heat, drought and bushfires, it appeared to have tears as dry as the dirt it stood on.

Calling it a day

By now, the heat, haze, and flies were getting beyond bearable, so we drove back to Benalla for cool showers and a change of clothes. To say nothing of a side trip to the bottle shop for some ice-cold Corona’s. We stayed in for the rest of the afternoon. Doing justice to the Corona’s and a bottle of NZ Sav Blanc. The next day we planned to capture as much street art in Benalla as possible.