Wheat Country

Many years ago I worked in an office which had a poster on the wall of an amazing building, the "Stick Shed" at Murtoa. Today I got to go and see it for myself.

The exterior doesn't look too promising:

Although you might get the sense that it goes on for quite a distance. In fact it is 265metres long,

60 metres across, and nearly 20 metres tall in the centre. If dwarfs the humans. 560 trees hold up the roof. It is like a giant rustic cathedral.

It was built during the second world war as an emergency bulk wheat storage shed. When full, it held 3.5 million bushels, or about 92,500 tonnes, of wheat.

You can read more about it at the Stick Shed website. 

We bought lunch from a shop in Murtoa - injecting a little bit of cash into the local economy. On the way back to the car, I got a call from Mum's nursing home, to say that she had a fever and they wanted to send her to hospital. I said I would really prefer them to care for her there if they could. I thought the transfer to hospital, and the hanging around on a trolley for potentially hours waiting to be seen, would do her more harm than good.

To add some variety to the trip, we came home a different way, travelling through three towns with painted silos.

This one is in Rupanyup, a town I've never visited before. I only knew of it from a job I had many many years ago with a wool-buying company. Their silos were painted by a Russian mural artist, Julia Volchkova.

Next stop was St Arnaud,

to see their silos painted by a local artist, Kyle Torney. He has also painted murals on other buildings around the town, which we saw a few of while buying and enjoying icecreams.

The last silo for the day was at Avoca, where the art work is still in progress:

This side depicts a barking owl, and a brush-tailed phascogale is planned for the other side. The artist is Jimmi Buscombe from Warrnambool. When finished, this silo art will also have some glow-in-the-dark features.

While in Avoca we also visited the Chinese Garden:

The garden was a peaceful spot to rest for a while, on what was quite a warm day. Monday and Tuesday both had top temperatures of 10.1C in Lal Lal, so suddenly being in the high 20s was a shock to the system! 

It was a really good day out.