Blog 148 Melrose to Burra

24th February

Tent up, slept well. There were no snakes, none that I could see, nor venemous spiders. Just the moon which was slowly descending when I woke at 5am to pull my tent down, everything packed away.

20 mins later and on the road. It was cold. 6c, which is a drop of 38 degrees centigrade from the day before. I’ve not felt cold for 6 months. There was no swagger to my style just the grunt of getting through my day. Riding with the sun rising on my left I stopped to talk to three beautiful horses, kookaburras chatting away perched on tree tops, their view lining newly cropped wheat fields on the gently rolling hills when a ‘hello Nick’ rang out and it was from the bike shop owner Richard who I met in Melrose the day before.  

We rode for a while, my first riding companion for 6 months but after 10 minutes I was alone once again.The tinder in the corner shop.

Silo Art in South Australia

Wirrabara is a town located in the Southern Flinders Ranges in the mid north of South Australia. The Horrocks highway passes through town and it also sits on along the Rocky River. 

In April 2018 Sam Bates, or as he is otherwise known ‘Smug’ visited the town of Tumby Bay during the ‘Colour Tumby Street Art Festival’. It was here that Smug met the organiser of the festival Dion Lebrun. The local Wirrabara Community did not want a local resident painted on their silos, so Smug chose Dion Lebrun to be the inspiration for the Wirrabara silo Art.

The artwork also depicts the rich history of the area which has strong ties to the forestry industry as well as referencing the beautiful local flora and fauna for which the area is also well known for.

The Viterra Silos at Wirrabara took Smug three weeks to complete in October 2018.

Map of the Day