FLASHPACKERS TRAVEL

It was January, 2020 when we sold up most of our belongings and put the rest into storage and began our life on the road. 

Obviously, we had no idea what was to come, so when we packed up all our belongings we literally only kept with us the items that we anticipated taking overseas with us.  I left all my unfinished stitcheries and sewing items in storage and Greg left all of his tools.

Recognising that these items would bring us comfort in preparation for life on the road, we recently retrieved them from storage.

I retrieved a quilt top I had completed by designer Rosalie DEKKER and was excited to complete it into a quilt.  I have basted it together and have it ready to hand quilt all the layers together.

Rosie is one of my favourite designers.  My friends, Trish and Siobhan and I, often attended workshops held by her and I attended many stalls she had at various quilt shows.  Rosie died at the end of 2017 and although she was someone I respected, I considered her a friend and her death at the age of 48 years has had a huge effect on my life moving forward.

I retrieved another stitchery/quilt design by Rosie called ‘Flowerville’.  Today I completed the first stitchery in a nine stitchery quilt and read Rosie’s notation at the beginning of the pattern which I would like to quote.  She wrote this in 2015.

“Sometimes in life, things take a very different course than you expected.  Life changes and we need to adjust.  This process takes time and can be quite difficult.  As I find myself in a new phase of my life, I am determined to find the good, see the blessing and give thanks for the friends and family that make up my world.  Flowerville is a fictitious world that I have created where beauty abounds and life is simpler and fulfilling.  There are quite a lot of real elements of my new life incorporated into this design, and the first block is called ‘Rosies Cottage’.  It is symbolic of my new life in my beautiful one bedroom cottage in the forest.”

And here we are, Mr Flashpackerstravel and I, ironically in a one bedroom cottage in the woods finding ourselves on a different course than expected.  By no means am I comparing our misfortunes to Rosie’s at all, nor disrespecting her challenges.  But as I sat in our cottage this morning, having just completed her stitchery, I was struck by her words as I read them for the first time.

And since we don’t believe in coincidences at Flashpackerstravel, instead, believing that we were meant to be right where we are right now, reading these beautiful words from my friend as if they were meant for me, I really am finding so much beauty around us in our everyday life.  Thank you Rosie, thank you for the gift you have given me of your beautiful kind words and your works of art.

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On Tuesday 16^th June, 2020, Flashpackerstravel hit the road to do the Silo Art Trail.

We celebrated Greg’s birthday the Sunday before and all the kids came to celebrate, making his day extra special.  We had planned to leave the following day, but the weather was especially bad, so we waited out the day.

As we began our drive, the roads were still wet and we had every intention of trying out our new swag for the first time.  With excitement in our bellies, we were pretty happy to hit the road, albeit for a day or two.

We arrived at the first silo stop at Rupanyup.  Here before us was the artwork of Russian mural artist, Julia Volchkova.  The paintings are of locals, Ebony Baker and Jordan Weidemann.  They did not disappoint!

From here, we drove to Sheep Hills and were struck by the magnificence of these silos by Melbourne based artist, Adnate.  He has depicted two Elders and two children as a celebration of the area’s Indigenous culture and what a celebration it is.  His work is magnificent and was such an honour to view on this trail.

We continued onto Brim from Sheep Hills and once again was blown away by the sheer height and magnitude of such incredible art work, this time by Guido van Helten.  It is a depiction of the local farming community.  We really loved the subtleties of the raw colours used and once again, humbled by this great art work.

This was meant to be our last silo for the day and we drove to locate a beautiful free camp to set up for the night in Brim, at the community parkland, however, the area was all closed off with COVID restrictions still in place.  So we took a moment to work out our next plan, which would not involve a night in our swag unfortunately.

We drove on to Rosebery and literally stumbled across these silos just on the side of the main road in a town that if you blinked, you would miss it.

The two painted silos by Melbourne artist Kaff-eine, are meant to depict the regions ‘past, present and future’.  This completed our first day of silo trekking and from here we drove on to Lascelles and found a fantastic cabin for only $80 for the night.  There were a few cabins located just 50 meters from the local pub and for the price we were very comfortable for the evening.

We woke the next day and literally walked across the road to view the second last silo on the art trail.  These painted silos were interesting.  We found them disjointed, given that they are of husband and wife, Geoff and Merrilyn Horman by Melbourne artist Tyrone ‘Rone’ Wright, but this aside, we loved it.  We found the ‘black & white’ look on the silos to be very striking.

We drove onto the town of Patchewollock, which I was so excited to attend because Greg renamed it to Patchworkwollock, which really put a smile on my face.

Brisbane artist, Fintan Magee, painted local sheep and grain farmer, Nick “Noodle” Hulland.  We loved it here.  We loved the gorgeous hay shed nearby.  We loved the cooing pigeons who took home in the water tanks on the centre of the silo and we loved the atmosphere of this town.  We stopped for a coffee at the local post office/grocery store/general store.  We were SO impressed that they were able to make us a soy latte, we couldn’t even get a soy or almond milk latte in Ballarat the previous week!  Some of life’s simple pleasures that we find joy in.

Eager to extend our silo adventures, we researched and found two more silos and made our way back to Daylesford via both.  After refuelling at a town called Speed, in which you MUST drive slowly (giggles), we continued on our road trip to Sea Lake for the incredible silo art spanning over seven silos!!!! 

They were completed by Drapl & The Zookeeper and we were drawn into the cleverness of the art as our eyes were drawn to the leafy bushes along the train tracks that were emulated on the bases of the silos and the sky blue at the top of the silos which blended in perfectly with the sky above.  Definitely more of an impact in real life, than what is depicted in the image. I was very torn between this silo and Sheep Hills being my favourite!

Lastly, we drove onto Nullawil.  Wowee, nothing like a dog painting to bring a tear to my eyes and a warm feeling over my heart.  This silo was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO damn cute.

Artist Sam Bates painted this silo and the little touches were so lovely.  An example of this was the registration tag on the Kelpie which has a Gallah and a stick depicted on it.  The  name of the town is derived from two Aboriginal words, Nulla, meaning stick and Wil, derived from the word willock, meaning Galah.

This completed our Victorian Art Silo Trail and it was just a wonderful trip which I highly recommend you do.  I have read that there are 15 painted silos in Victoria and 35 in all of Australia.  Mr Flashpackerstravel doesn’t know it yet, but we are going to find all 35 of them on our travels when they get started, hehehehe!