Travelling time

(Warning - photo heavy post!)

Arriving in Auckland, New Zealand ....... and arriving in Melbourne, Australia.

Kiwikid Sue and I are slowly making our way up the country as we head for our Scrub Stitching retreat.

Sue (very kindly) picked me up from Melbourne Airport and we started travelling north.

We spent the first night at Benalla. It was getting dark but we had a walk around a quick look at some of the murals painted around town-

As we were leaving Benalla, we stopped and had a closer look at the sculpture below. A collaborative effort of several artists, it was quite amazing with so many little intricate and imaginative details; we could have looked at it for ages-

But we had a tiki-tour planned around the Silo Art Trail to commence so we hit the road.
First stop was Goorumbat-

The silos all had plaques describing their origins. The ones at Goorumbat had a strong conservation theme, depicting Milli, the Australian Barking Owl, listed as endangered, and the Iron Bark tree, which is an important habitat for the Barking Owl and its prey.

I loved the Clydsales, also at Goorumbat. They were the back bone of this farming community for many years.

About this time, Sue and I decided we should do the odd selfie. Not very successfully, perhaps, but a good laugh all the same!

Even the toilets were decorated!

Not far away was Devinish. Their artwork was described as a visual tribute to the 50 young men and women from the community who enlisted in WW1. Another toilet block-

And the silos-

The St James artwork signified the importance of grain to the district-

Here is also where GJ Coles started life - he went on to found the well known Coles Supermarkets.

More horses!

Tungamah was our next stop. At a toilet stop at the camping ground this kiwigal was fascinated by the trees filled with Corellas. (All the white 'spots' in the trees.) A lovely place to stop!

Then onto the silos,

The gift shop-

Further along at Finley (after a very late lunch) we found some painted walls-

And at Jerilderie, Sue wanted to show me this rather clever 'sculpture' of Ned Kelly, reknown Australian bushranger and outlaw. It was made out of Bakers' tins!!

By now the day was disappearing - we'd spent a lot of time at all the silo stops and we had a big drive to get us to our booked accomodation at West Wyalong.

While I was speeding along, Sue grabbed us some gorgeous sunset shots.

 As you can imagine, there are plenty more sights and images- far too many to share.... I'm one day behind in my blogging as this was yesterday and today is still to come (and not as photo heavy!). Next installment of our adventure soon....

'til next time,

happy stitching,

Raewyn