Ten Day Getaway

Time for a break, we’ve spent the last month packing for a life changing change. The old homestead is sold and new residence is in the planning time to take a breather. Nothing like that bitumen black top to get the wheels spinning along under that vast bubble we call sky. Driving towards the ever retreating horizon in search of the unknown. For everyday is an unknown and that big country is waiting for us. Morning comes and we are up before the morning light. As we have breakfast the suns blush reflects off the clouds as they appear out of the darkness.

The car packed we make our way towards the nearby southeastern freeway that links Adelaide with Melbourne. Within minutes we are heading eastward into the rising sun towards the Victorian border. The green Adelaide hills disappear behind us opening up to the dry brown plains ahead only punctuated by the mighty Murray river as it snakes its way towards the coast. Crossing the river we see house boats plying the silvery waters, as holiday makers float their way down stream making the most of the last of these summer days. After crossing we follow the river around to Tailem Bend, now the site of a world class motor sport circuit. These old towns are living museums, where one can still see the remnants of an old Australia and a lifestyle that has gone the way of the pioneers.

From here we turn northeast leaving the river behind and entering the Mallee grain growing district that spreads from South Australia’s mid north (over 20,000 sq kilometres/ 7,700 sq miles) to the Victorian border where the same agricultural features and climate conditions continue over another 39,300 sq kilometres/15,200 sq miles. The area is vast, semi arid with low rainfall 250 -300mm/10-12 inches annually. Yet grows some of the best wheat, barley and legumes in the world. The endless fields on either side of the road have given up their bounty to the export market leaving dusty looking sheep to graze on any new shoots that make their way through the remnants of the brown stubble.

Mallee trees and various other eucalyptus in places form green hedgerows along the road, lending a lie to the arid landscape. Mallee is a small hardwood tree that has curved and twisted boughs that the indigenous people prized for boomerang making along with other weapons. The hardwood is virtually indestructible and can be hardened even further in hot coals.

At Lameroo, a neat country town of wide parallel streets that cross each other grid fashion we spot our first painted grain silo artwork. This art form has taken root in country Australia and has flourished, bringing a crop of tourists like us to town, with the hope we will spend a dollar or two on lunch or coffee or maybe even stay a night. This first sighting shows a farmer praying as the sunsets over his land, for rain.

At the border between South Australia and Victoria we stop to take a photo of the crossing.

Then onto Murrayville where examples that time travel is possible are clearly visible in a row of shops and the local hotel.

Further along the town of Walpeup adds another Silo artwork to our collection. This one reminds us that these once thriving country towns lost a generation of young men in the Great War (WW 1) in particular this Light Horseman Harold Thomas Bell a Walpeup resident painted by Julian Clavijo in 2023. We leave debating the pronunciation of this curiously named town.

Dry salt lakes are common out here, left over from a time a millennium ago when an inland sea filled vast low lying depressions. We stop by one that some imaginative person has decorated with a person hopping away from sharks, having lost one foot as the sharks with their dorsal fins showing above the salt bed circle in pursuit.

At Sea Lake we head south again heading for Bendigo where we will spend our first night. Sea Lake is well known for Lake Tyrell, the largest inland salt lake in Victoria. It also does have silo art, a work by artists with the strange names of Zookeeper and Drapl. The work spans a collection of Silo’s and tanks.

Our final stop is at Nullawil where yet another Silo artwork is revealed to us, this time a farmer with his black and tan Australian Kelpie working dog.

A long day on the road finally brings us to Bendigo, gold fever country. History tells us that during the gold rush period in the 1880’s Bendigo laid claim to being the richest city in the world. Our stopover will have us content with a golden sleepover ready and refreshed for the next leg of our journey to the King Valley.