Silos as a canvas

This unique project aims to turn rural landscapes into an open-air art gallery. Northam, Western Australia, was the first official silo artwork in 2015, created by Phlegm and HENSE. However, the Silo Trail concept was initially launched by the Yarriambiack Shire Council in 2016. Since then, talented artists from Australia and all over the globe have been invited to paint these silos with their artistic interpretations.

The painted silo artwork is by famous street artists such as Rone, Adnate, Dvate, Guido Van Helton, Kaff-eine and others, who use these towering silos as their canvases to create impressive artworks that celebrate the local communities, culture, and history.

The Silo Art Trail

The original Silo Art Trail in Northwest Victoria started in 2016 and stretches 350km across regional Victoria, where the silos are strategically located in small towns along the trail. The artwork celebrates the people and culture of the region and adds an artistic touch to the picturesque countryside. Towns that feature painted silos (in driving order) are:- St Arnaud, Rapanyup, Murtoa, Horsham, Sheep Hills, Brim, Lascelles, Walepeup, Sea Lake and Nullawil, with more being added all the time.

North East Silo Trail

The North East Victoria Silo Art Trail began in 2018 and spans 132km. It starts just outside Benalla and takes approximately two hours to complete. Talented artists, including Guido Van Helten, Sobrane, Cam Scale, Adnate, Dvate, and Tim Bowtell, a local artist from Benalla, created the silos along this trail. The first town, Goorambat, has four works of art, including the interior wall of the Uniting Church.

From there, it goes to Devenish, St James, Katatamite and Tungamah. The CFA Water tank at Winton Wetlands is a must-see on returning to Benalla. A North East Trail map is available for download.

Winton Wetlands

The Winton Wetlands Art in the Landscape project aims to improve the visitor experience and raise awareness about the ecological significance of the wetlands by incorporating art installations and sculptures throughout the area. Among these installations are the CFA water tanks. The tank depicts the faces of three CFA firefighters on its side. While in Winton, they are still part of the North East Silo Trail.

Guido Van Helton was commissioned in 2016, as part of the Wall to Wall Street Art Festival in Benalla, to paint the water tank in the heart of the Winton Wetlands.

Echuca-Moama Silo Trail

Echuca Moama and its surrounding regions house four silo and water tank art installations. The Echuca-Moama trail can be done in a full day, but can also be split it into two half-day drives. The total driving time, without any stops, is roughly between 3.5 to 4 hours.

From Echuca, it’s a short 25-minute drive to Rochester where there are two silos painted by Jimmy Dvate. While n Rochester check out Iddles Lane featuring murals painted by Tim Bowtell celebrating Ron Iddles one of the state’s most respected detectives

It takes approximately 25 minutes to drive from Rochester to Colbinabbin. In 2020, artist Tim Bowtell painted the silos in Colbinabbin, showcasing important moments from the town’s history. These moments include the town’s connection to agriculture, community, environment, and the construction of the railway.

The final destination is Picola, which is located 35 minutes away, again painted by Jimmy Dvate. The artwork showcases the culturally significant Barmah National Park and the various wildlife that inhabits it. After visiting Picola, it will take another 30 minutes to return to Echuca.

Woomeland Field Bins

Explore Woomelang’s unique Mini Silo Art Trail, which offers a creative twist on the well-known Big Silo Art Trail. This trail features eight Mini Silos (Field Bins) scattered throughout the town, providing a fun and exciting way to discover the area. The Mini Silos celebrates the endangered species of the Mallee region.

In June 2020, a group of seven artists, including Jimmy DVate, Andrew J Bourke, and Kaff-eine, converted mini silos into a popular tourist attraction for the town. The mini silos showcase endangered species that are native to the area.

The Silo Art Trail showcases the transformative power of art in enriching communities. This painted silos project has revitalised rural Australia by using ordinary grain silos as canvases for extraordinary murals, providing an unparalleled cultural experience for both locals and visitors. As you travel along the trail, you will witness breathtaking artwork and become part of the collective effort to preserve the essence of regional Australia.

The Silo Art Trail symbolises resilience, creativity, and the indomitable spirit of the Australian outback. So, pack your bags, hit the road, and let the vibrant stories told by the silos take you on an unforgettable adventure!

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The Agnes Mumford Reserve is directly opposite the Redesdale Hotel – so either works for a pit stop. We parked in the reserve and enjoyed our cookies and hot coffee. As we never know where we are going to find an image – we always travel with snacks and a thermos 🙂

Avoca

From Redesdale, we headed to Avoca. Jimmy Busuttil has been working on the Avoca silo for a couple of months now, but work has come to a standstill while they await permission to paint the other side, which is almost on the railway line, so a few OH&S issues need to be solved. When it is finished, it will have a background of the night sky behind the owl; his eyes and stars will be glow in the dark paint – and it will be lit up at night.

We also stopped off at the railway cafe, up the road from the silo, for a late lunch – but they seemed to be mainly catering to cakes and coffee – and while they were open – there was no one there to serve us.

From Avoca, we headed off on the final leg of the days’ journey – to St Arnaud. Arriving in St Arnaud, we drove around photographing the street murals and silo – all done by Kyle Torney and featuring locals of the town or its history.

St Arnaud

Mural Locations

1. The Hope silo – Mc Mahon st
2. Ron Reyne Mural – opposite the Hope silo at 14 Mc Mahon st
3. Mates Mural – Cnr Wills St and Kings Ave
4. The Miner Mural – 22 Kings Ave
5. CFA Mural – Cnr Napier and Alma Sts
6. Andrea Hicks Mural – side of the wall at 117 Napier St
7. Loss Hamilton Mural – 36 Alma St
8. Torneys Fighting Fit Gym – cnr of Alma and McMahon sts
9. Owen – sidewall of 18 Napier St
10. St Arnaud Primary school – observe from Dundas Street
11. Royal Hotel Beer Garden at 60 Napier St

We were booked into the Motel St Arnaud for the night before an early start the next day to Sea Lake via the Silo Art Trail. Our motel was clean, beds and shower were good, and the free wifi was fast – for a budget motel it’s excellent value. Dinner that night was at the Royal Hotel, built in 1874 its full of character and old-world charm and decorated throughout with antiques and another mural in the beer garden. We enjoyed wine by the open fire before heading into the dining room for dinner.

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Originally it was planned as a one-off project just for Brim. However, the popularity of the silo’s saw many more added across Victoria, with more designed or being added all the time, making maps of the trail obsolete very quickly. As a result, there are now two silo trails in Victoria. The North East Silo Art Trail and the ‘original Silo Art Trail in the Wimmera.

To the tiny towns, while some are thriving, many are little more than ghost towns. The silo art trail brings the much-needed tourist dollars into town. Be it meals, fuel or accommodation and souvenirs. But, like in Field of Dreams, “build it, and they will come”, and come they do. At each silo, there is a constant stream of cars pulling off the road to marvel or photograph the works.

Doing the Trail

The entire Victorian Silo Art Trail can be easily done in a day. The most time required to view or photograph each silo is under 30 minutes. You will need accommodation at the end, though, as the trail will take around 5 hours – and leave you about 4 hours from Melbourne. So that’s an excellent opportunity to stay in Sea Lake and include Lake Tyrell at sunset before heading off in the morning again.

Our Plan

Some time ago, a group of friends and I planned a trip. We would visit the Silo Art Trail, Lake Tyrell and Mungo National Park. Departure day is tomorrow, and we are all meeting up in St Arnaud tomorrow afternoon. Along the way, we will photograph silo’s, water towers, street art and ancient landscapes. At Mungo, we go ‘dark’ for two days as it is so remote there is no cell reception there.

Follow along with us as the next few posts will cover our travels.

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Nagambie

Our destination was Nagambie, a pretty little town on Nagambie Lake just an hour from Melbourne. The lake was created in 1891 with the damming of the Goulburn River and is a popular spot for fishing, sailing, canoeing, water skiing, and swimming. Unfortunately, we missed most of the autumn colour as the trees were almost bare by mid-June. Some colour clung tenaciously to the branches, but they were the exception to the primarily bare limbed trees.

The weather did play nice for our time there, with cold nights, misty, crisp mornings, and sunshine during the day. However, while the sun was out, it was still winter clothing weather with not much warmth in the sun.

Sunrise on the Lakes

We were blessed with a beautiful sunrise on our second morning with thick fog on the way to our chosen spot, and as the sun rose, the mist cleared but hung low over the lakes. We stayed around shooting till the sun was up, and driven by cold, numb hands, we headed back to the warmth of the car and then breakfasted back at our cottage.

Colbinabbin Silo’s

We were due back home today, so after loading the car, we struck out towards the new silos at Colbinabbin painted by Tim Bowtell. There are six silos in a row at Colbinabbin – painted over eight weeks in March-April 2020 by Tim Bowtell.

The grain silos at Colbinabbin depict five scenes from the early 1900s to the 1980s and the railway that connected Rushworth to Colbinabbin. The railway was built in 1913 to enable the transportation of livestock and produce to Melbourne. The German settlers also depicted on the silos established farms to the west of Colbinabbin and built a post office, school, and community hall to serve their families.

Tim Bowtell

As well as the Colbinabbin silos, Tims work can be seen on numerous walls around Benalla and the silo’s at St James, the Fish Trees at Winton Wetlands and the Winton rest stop.

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Our motley crew

My travelling companions were fellow photographers from the Victorian Photographers Collective plus their spouses. Thirteen of us left Melbourne on Sunday and met up with two more in Broken Hill and Mungo. Sixteen photographers in total, everyone got on great and looked out for each other. We laughed, groaned at the walking and had a ball. We covered around 2000 km, and a fair amount of that was dirt roads. However, I think I am cured of dirt roads for the next year!

St Arnaud

Our first overnight stop was at St Arnaud. Solely based on it was the closest proximity to Rapunyup that had reasonable accommodation. It’s also where another silo was in the progress of being painted. So we stayed in a very nice budget motel in St Arnaud and headed off on the 40 min journey to Rapanyup next morning. The organisers of the silo art trail boast about the extra tourists the silos are bringing to the region, but accommodation and cafes are thin on the ground (if not invisible), and everyone just stops, shoots off a few pics and travels on. So the towns still have a ‘lost and neglected’ feel to them. Shops are boarded up and empty. No one was on the street.

Rupanyup

Monday morning, we woke to glorious sunny blue skies… warm enough for t-shirts too!.  We left St Arnaud after breakfast and headed to Rapanyup. The silos are smaller than the huge concrete ones painted already—the artist Julia Kolchkova from Russia. Julia started about a week ago. At the rate, she is going; they will be finished in the next week or so. Behind the silo’s is a disused Railway Station – apparently, it has been sold, but I don’t its purpose be. It’s probably too much to hope that it will be a cafe and gift shop or B & B.

Sheep Hills

The next stop on our trip heading North West was Sheep Hills, just 42kms down the road. These were much taller than the Rupanyup Silo’s and were painted by Matt Adnate. Again, an incredibly realistic Aboriginal face gazed down on us, the detail on them is amazing. The chap in the red shirt saw us all pull in and checked it out too. He hadn’t heard of them. But he gives you an idea of the size of the silos.

Brim

After stopping off in Warrackanabeal for lunch and a wander around, we headed towards Brim. The Brim silos were the first to be painted, and their popularity led to the others. The Brim Silos stand beside the Henty Hwy and are the work of Guido Van Helton. They feature four locals from the area. Driving into town, you can see them from miles out. They dominate the skyline as you drive in.

Patchewollock

The next stop was Patchewollock, 87kms up the road. It was the longest gap between painted silo’s,  as the two more scheduled to be added by the end of the year, are in Rosebery and Lascelles. They will be between Brim and Patchewollock. There is no cellular reception in town, or the surrounding area so don’t rely on your phone as a GPS. You’re going to need paper maps to direct you to the next town. There was also no petrol or food that we saw in Patchewollock. So fill up both the car and yourself in Warracknabeal. Alongside the silo look for the old Patchewollock Station. Old machinery and carts gracefully rusting into the red Mallee earth are dotted around the station. 

Red Cliffs, Mildura

From Patchewollock, relying on paper maps we headed first to Walepeup, then Ouyen and finally Mildura. Our overnight destination for the day. Just before Mildura, we stopped off at Red Cliff’s lookout. And drove around in circles for a while with everyone’s GPS telling them different things. We eventually found the lookout. damaged and fenced off, but with a fence low enough to be overcome 😉

Unfortunately, there was a glitch with our booking for the night, and there was no room at the inn. The motel owner found us alternate accom quickly, and we settled in down the road at Cottonmouth Motel. Lovely hosts, eager to help us and settle us in after the mix-up. The changing of motels and getting organised blew our plans for sunset out of the water, though. so we settled on a nice dinner at the local RSL

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