Today is our last day of travelling SA for Silo Art and Water Tower artwork.  One silo at Farrell Flat and a water tower at Snowtown to visit.  I messaged Pam H yesterday to make sure she would be home tonight.  She was not going anywhere so I said we would bring a cooked chicken for dinner and Masterchef Pete would do the vegies!  I had made Raspberry Swirl Cheesecakes for dessert.  The frozen raspberries and cream cheese had travelled 6,000 kms and their last journey was going to be from Renmark to Crystal Brook!  Well four of the twelve went to Crystal Brook and the other eight will sustain us for the trip west.  Especially the Nullarbor journey!  Re the hot chicken.  When I told Peter what the food plan was, his comment was “Where are you going to get a cooked chook”?  My response “I don’t know! Somewhere”!  He rolled his eyes and said no more.  I must admit I hadn’t seen too many places with cooked chickens, but I didn’t add my thoughts to his!

Travel wasn’t that interesting, so I blogged away on the iPad.  We went from Renmark to Morgan on the Goyder Highway and then from Morgan to Burra on the same Highway and we were definitely on or over the Goyder Line.  Very boring drive!  At Burra I convinced the driver, again rolling his eyes, to go 3 kms north on the Barrier Highway so I could take a photo of the iconic Cobb & Co Coach House!  The image became famous when it was photographed by renown landscape photographer Ken Duncan and it was used on Midnight Oil's album cover Diesel and Dust.  I've seen it on calendars as well.  Now there is a bituminised pull in area for photographers. 

We would have been at Pam’s a lot earlier if we had continued north and gone across to Spalding and Gladstone.   But back into Burra we went for a bakery potato pie for lunch,  and hopefully the cooked chook!  There outside IGA was a sign Size 16 Cooked Chicken.  Phew!  The hunt was over.  I have to add here that Pam H also said she wondered where we would get this cooked chook?  You don't see them very much in SA.  We also purchased some big sausages and hamburgers from the Burra Butcher.  We enjoyed our butcher purchase in 2018 when we were here with John and Dorothy.  

Lunch and the shopping done we headed towards Clare and Farrell Flat.  This was the road we had travelled with John and Dorothy in 2018, but we hadn’t taken any notice of the little town of Farrell Flat then.  Now they have silo art though.  Peter talked with some guys that were working at the silo, while I talked with NSW travellers who have only had a caravan for two years.  They are heading to WA.  The silos at this town are owned privately.  The guys told Peter that a lot of SA’s grain harvest is sold to local feed businesses.  Is this why Viterra are supportive of the silo art projects?  It may be cheaper to beautify them than to demolish, and the artwork brings the tourists to the towns.  This silo art was completed in November 2020 and depicts the last train to go through Farrell Flat.  The former Roseworthy-Peterborough railway line passed through the town from the late 1800's until the mid 1900's.  150 litres of paint was used by local Adelaide artists Jarrod Soden and Matthew Knights and they spent 140 hours painting the 30-metre tall silo. The total size of the art piece is 900 square metres.  It was funded by a Commonwealth Government's Drought Community Grant.

We didn’t leave Farrell Flat on the road we came in, hence we found ourselves in a little town in the hills south of Clare.  Who cares?  Not me and the driver handled the 17 km scenic, windy, hilly road that took us past a number of wineries to Clare.  We will head out this road next visit to Clare, but definitely without the caravan behind.

From Clare we took a road west to Blyth, which was another scenic drive.  From Blyth to Snowtown was farming country and the farmers were dry seeding, so there was plenty of dust!  We sure hope SA get drenching opening rains soon.  It is very dry in so much of SA.

I would think Snowtown probably started to lose its identity when the A1 no longer passed through the town.  The mural on the water tower was painted by renowned mural artist Joel Van Moore - better known as 'Vans the Omega'.  He was also assisted by Sam Brooks who painted the Eudunda silo art.  The Snowtown disused water tower near the town's centre now depicts the bright faces of local volunteers and sports stars.  Local Country Fire Service volunteer of more than 25 years John Hansen, features prominently on the roadside of the tower.   Blyth Snowtown Football Club games record holder, Simon McCormack also features as does Snowtown ambulance volunteer Jenny Cox.  There is also the image of a local netball player.  The mural used more than 120 litres of paint and about 300 spray-cans and was completed in April 2018.

We arrived at Pam's just after 4.00pm and spent a lovely few hours catching up on what had happened over the last month since we had left her lovely and welcoming home.  We did have the roast chicken and vegies and the cheesecake, along with a glass or two of wine.  There was no scrapbooking, just talking!