Day 3 Lascelles to Avoca

Awoke to a classic Autumn morning, cold with a clear blue sky. Once we had eaten breakfast we packed up the caravan and headed over to take one last look at the silo art in Lascelles. It was tricky to take a good photo because half the silo was basking in sunlight and the other half was in shadow. Ah well, off we drove up to Sea Lake. The silo art was easy to spot as we drove into town. It was one of the most colourful we had seen.

We drove into the car park and took a closer look at the art on the various silos in the group.

Nearby Lake Tyrell featured on a couple of the silos. Sadly for us the lake was in the opposite direction to where we were heading.

On the last silo the artists, DRAPL and the Zookeeper, had signed off on this spectacular artwork when they had finished it in 2019. 

The State Government had even made a grant so that the art could be illuminated at night to add to the experience for visitors. 

For us there was more to see so off we went. About half an hour down the road we came to a rare sight in Boigbeat, a silo without art on it!

Next up was Nullawil another half hour away. This featured a farmer and four legged friend. It had been painted by Smug (Sam Bates) from NSW.

There was even a miniature of the silos.

Given it featured a dog Karen grabbed Mel up for a snap too.

A couple of strange metal sculptures were there too.

I guess they were helping advertise for local sculptor, Trickbots Metal Art. There, they just scored a free ad.

Back into the car, after swapping driver, we drove down to Charlton. We stopped here for a bakery visit. Mel and I shared a sausage roll and Karen enjoyed a hot chocolate. No silo art but a nice mural on the wall of the pub.

There was also a sculpture of one of our former Prime Ministers, John Curtin.

Down near the river, where we had parked, I noticed a fish sculpture.

According to a nearby sign it was a Broadbill Swordfish. Given they are native to Kenya, not sure why it was there. But on closer inspection it may have had something to do with Kenya competing at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, held in Melbourne.

Back in the car we headed down to St Arnaud, about an hour away. On arrival we saw the silo art pretty quickly. It featured a husband and wife during the gold rush days of the 1850s.

I liked the way the colour palette fitted in with the colour of the metal that the silos were constructed with.

Next up we found a nice spot in a park for a late lunch before driving down to Avoca. We’d booked a caravan site there for the night earlier in the day. Once we had set up we drove to their silo. Again it was a metal one. It featured a Barking Owl. It had been painted by Jimmi Buscombe in 2021. At night you could turn self timing lights on to see it.

Just to one side was a mural of local native animals by the Barking Owl Creative.

There was also an information board detailing how this was the world’s first ‘glow in the dark’ silo. Apparently you could use a torch or your mobile phone torch to sign your name on the mountains below the owl. At night this would show up because they had used luminescent paint. At the time we thought we might come back when it was dark but when it came to the crunch after dinner, 4 degrees wasn’t enticing us out of the warm caravan to try it. Some other time perhaps!

Day 4 Avoca to Dromana

Two degrees the next morning didn’t have us rushing out of bed but after hot porridge with honey and banana we packed up and started the trip back towards home. Wind powered turbines could be seen in the mist as we drove through the farming community of Waubra.

We soon joined back onto the Western Highway and made our way down the Pentland Hills.

For those with good eyesight Melbourne’s skyline could be seen in the distance. 

When we reached Melton we diverted to visit an old friend who had introduced Karen to me many years ago. We stopped near our old house, the first house I ever bought. We’d left there in 1989. Sadly nearly all the trees and shrubs had been removed, leaving mostly grass. People say you should never go back to where you’ve lived in the past, perhaps they’re right.

After a cuppa and a good chat we resumed our journey. Unfortunately, just after we crossed over the Westgate Bridge

we ran into a traffic jam, even though it was only mid afternoon.

Metre by metre we crawled along, finally making our way to the Monash Freeway and then Peninsula Link to arrive back home in Dromana with plenty of time to unpack and cook dinner before darkness set in on what had been a colourful few days.