and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space
In Byron I’m staying at a friend’s house. Carole has the most amazing Grevillias, Callistemons and red pom-pommy things …
Birdlife Australia have a very handy pdf on the birds and birding spots for Byron Shire. The bird watcher should google “Birds of Byron Bay – Birdlife Australia”.
Captain James Cook was the first tourist here and he started quite a trend. He could hardly miss the most easterly point of the mainland which he named after John Byron a mariner of note (and the grandfather of the overrated poet). Early European settlers developed serious pursuits such as timber getting and gold mining but these days it’s all about hedonism, sun-worship, yoga, coffee any style and very expensive houses. There are little pockets of residual rainforest and extensive areas of heath dominated by Banksias.
It is very different from the country on the inland side of the ranges.
It was dark and raining when we drove into town. We were hoping to camp at the Primitive Camp Site just out of town. It’s free, has a toilet block and made camp sites spaced around it. It was full and a quagmire. The suggested alternative was the sports ground. The locals were having a party there to celebrate the rain, a very raucous party.
We camped instead on the banks of the Barwon River. When we woke up we could still hear the party going strong. Our campsite was bathed in mist.
Of New South Wales, that is.
We left Weethalle bright and early with Collarenebri our destination. The road less travelled would take us through Tottenham the geographic centre of the state. Yes, you could balance NSW on a pin placed beneath a point just 33km north-west of town.
We didn’t make the 33km detour to that particular landmark because we got a flat not far from Tullibigeal. It took a little while to change the wheel and more time was wasted in Condobolin trying to get the tyre repaired, a wasted effort.
So onward ever onward. The countryside was very dry but the sky overhead black with cloud. A lot of the paddocks had been prepared for sewing and then left waiting for a rain that hadn’t come. Livestock were in good condition. Farmers out here know that there will be a drought in every decade and have already made the decision to destock or hand feed. It’s tough but so are they.
The native wildlife is not being hand fed. Kangaroos are attracted to the green pick along the roadsides where the camber delivers just a bit more water to the vegetation. Whilst they’re not dying of starvation a lot have fallen victim to the passing traffic.
At Warren we ran into the rain. The heavens opened.
At Coonamble we chanced upon this …
a water tower rather than a silo which a bit of research reveals was painted by John Murray of Lightening Ridge and Sooty Walsh a local aboriginal artist.
We arrived at Collarenebri after dark.
The general trend of this little jaunt is north-east to hit Australia’s coast at the most easterly point of the mainland. Joining a few dots along the way adds to the interest. The first dot was Goorambat the second is Weethalle in NSW.
This little town came into existence in the early 1920’s. Wheat started rolling out on the railway in 1923. Having nothing better to argue about the lovely Gayle and I speculated on the origin and pronunciation of the name as we drove. Clearly it’s from a Germanic/Nordic language meaning White Hall and pronounced with a hard T and the final E Weet-haller. Gayle begged to differ (actually insisted rather than begged). Take the V out of weevil and put in the TH from that and you have Weethell. Australians do some amazing things to words.
On our arrival we accosted a local who put us straight. It’s from an Aboriginal word for drink and it’s pronounced Wee-Tharlie. She ran off a list of mis-pronunciations that visitors had tried. Anyway it boasts a painted silo …
It’s the work of Melbourne-based artist Heesco Khosnaran who, it is said, used 200 litres of Haymes paint and 300 spray paint cans in the process.
We spent the night camping at the showgrounds. It’s $10 a night, instructions on how to make that small contribution are posted outside the toilet block. There is plenty of room and the toilets were nice and clean.
The annual Weethalle show was on the week before. Sadly, with the whole of New South Wales declared drought affected, it was rained out.
I was so impressed with the silos painted by Dvate at Rochester that I headed to Goorambat near Benalla to see his work there. Impressive. It was painted as part of the 2018 Wall to Wall Festival. The bird is a Southern Boobook.
700 metres away there is a mural in the church painted by Adnate …
On a day that feels nothing like spring, bleak, cold windy and wet, snowfalls down to 600 metres …
Birdlife tells us …
It usually parasitises bird species that build dome nests such as fairy-wrens and thornbills, but may also parasitise the open cup nests of other species, such as the White-fronted Chat.
Around here that means the Superb Fairywrens need to look out.
March 25, 1942 – August 16, 2018. Heaven’s choir gets better and better, ours considerably poorer …
Rochester this time, a small town on the Campaspe River in northern Victoria.
The artist is Jimmy Beattie aka Dvate and the subjects are a Squirrel Glider and a Sacred Kingfisher. The glider is a rare resident in the woods along the Campaspe while the kingfisher is a fairly common and colorful summer visitor. The medium is acrylic on silo.
Dvate has painted another silo near Benalla which I hope to catch up with soon.
Many more places possessed of silos are queueing up for a painting. As an art critic I am entering a burgeoning field. I hear there are some north of the border as well.
People send me things, including this …
A quick tickle of the search engine found it in several disguises and it likely started in Canada. So, clearly a fake …
… but does that mean it isn’t true?
bobmcgee 