As previously mentioned, only eleven weeks ago one of our politicians (to spare his blushes I’ll call him ‘Jason Wood’) was telling us that “if NSW could manage with around twenty cases per day, then why does the Victorian Labor Party and our stubborn Premier want to reach this ridiculously unrealistic target of a 5 case average over 14 days?!” Thanks to Daniel Andrews’ ‘stubbornness’, today is our 59th consecutive day without a community-contracted case of Coronavirus. On November 9th he promised us a COVID-normal Christmas as a reward for our long hard winter of coronavirus restrictions and that’s what we’ve had. Sadly most of the world hasn’t been so fortunate.
R-class loco and grain train
As part of that long winter lockdown, from the start of August we weren’t allowed to travel more than 5km (3 miles from home). Then from November 8th we were free to travel anywhere in Victoria, so I decided to take a break visiting the silo art in NE Victoria. Much as I love Melbourne, it was so good to be able to go away.
For my base I chose to stay at the Addison Motor Inn in Shepparton which I can thoroughly recommend. On day one I visited the silos at Colbinabbin and Rochester – it was seeing an R-class loco pictured on one of the Colbinabbin silos that first gave me the idea for this trip.
Colbinabbin silo art
Pictures do not though begin to convey the scale of these artworks. Look at the size of the person standing in front of the silo and you’ll get an idea of the size of these silos.
Originally only the concrete silos were to be painted, then it was decided to paint all six. The artwork, by Tim Bowtell, was started in April 2020 and took just 50 days to complete. This was his second silo art project after St James.
Farmers picnic (close-up)
The overall theme is the story of the railway and its significance to the Colbinabbin district. How wonderful to see a vision come to fruition and congratulations to everyone involved.
History notes
Colbinabbin was the terminus of the Rushworth railway line, opened 1913, closed 1987. The concrete silos are of the Williamstown type – 57 were built in Victoria between 1935 and 1950. The steel silos are of the Ascom design. From the 1930s until privatised in 1999 all grain passed through a government body known as the Australian Wheat Board which built these silos.
Silo art 2: St James, Devenish and Goorambat
Colbinabbin Silo Art Trail Facebook page