So, rewinding a couple of months …
I reached Kilmore the evening after I left Mount Hope (elevation 223m!), and nearly turned around. A grey, wet, chilly, and totally unpleasant Saturday evening. Especially after leaving warm and pleasant Cumborah only two days beforehand.
I had some chores to complete - closing down the business, end of tax year compliance, a couple of bits to get for travelling.
Off the Hook
And off to the doc, as one does. Flu shot - I forgot last year and suffered for it.
Have a look at this white spot - what do you think? Nothing to worry about.
This itchy-painful lump on my lip? Ah. Well. Yes. But I can’t do it - I can do arms and backs and heads, but not lips. Perhaps a plastic surgeon, or try Doctor X.
I had visions of “The Island of Doctor X”.
So I made an appointment for the following day, to see Doctor X at his island surgery, and duly turned up.
Whoah! Waiting room reading right up my alley. Pimping your caravan. Extreme adventures with your walking frame. The 7 best ways to stay regular on the road.
“Mister Mori, this way please”. “No problem”
“What’s up?” “This little lump gets itchy and sore in the sun”
“How long?” “A couple of years”
Prod. Pull. Squint. Magnifying glasses. Squeeze. Pull. Twist.
“Hmmmph. Mole. But. Not sure.”
By this stage my confidence was boundless.
“Not sure if cancer”
“Whaaaa …. ??”
“I usually advise my patients When in Doubt Chop it Out”
“Then we’ll test for cancer”
“Aaaaaaah …”
“I’m at the hospital tomorrow. But see you here, day after tomorrow. Midday. Thirty dollars for use of room”
“Uuuhm. OK.”
“See you bye” Doctor X turned back to his desk.
Now don’t get me wrong. Doctor X is veery noice, but has a gruff manner which assumes much POWER when he throws around words like cancer and pathology. But he didn’t seem too concerned so off I went, blissful in my ignorance. But with a little tickle in the back of my thoughts, concerning the little tickle on the front of my lip.
When in doubt. Chop it out.
I turned up on the day after hospital day. At midday. And rediscovered the literature. Oh joy. The best 10 routes for your winter nomad migration. Five ways to expel 50-ish youngsters from “your” camp area. Popularity at the campfire: how to talk with authority about solar power and suspension upgrades.
“This way Mister Mori”
Into the back room.
Boots off.
Bib.
Injections. In the lip.
Ouch. How can people get Botox done? Let alone go back a second time?
“Time to hack - oops - cut it out”
“Lets see. Can you feel that?”
Jab.
“Aaaagh!”
“Ok wait a minute. How about this?”
Jab.
“Ooow.”
“Ok we’re ready.”
“You might want to close your eyes in case some blood sprays up.”
Slice. Scrape. Tug. Tug. Scrape.
Jab. Tug. Scrape.
Jab. Tug. Scrape.
Jab. Tug. Scrape.
Three stitches.
“Here,” said the nurse. “Put this large dressing on your face.”
Doctor X didn’t like it.
“Better fresh air” he said. “Come back next week. Same bat-time, same bat-place. Stitches.”
Off I trotted.
Looked like half a halloween mask. He had cut a vertical wedge half way down my lip, and stitched it up.
The end of the stitch felt like a loose end of fishing line sticking in my top lip as I talked. Easy solution to that, said helpful friends and family, no real need to talk.
Back I went the following week. More literature. Overloading your RV: three easy steps. How to roll your caravan with finesse. Cooking with one ingredient or less.
Mister Mori.
Ah … prod prod.
Sit up here.
Prod. Twist.
Eye watering tug.
Pathology says no cancer. Probably just a mole.
(“Probably??”)
First stitch.
Let me cut this. Snip.
Tug. Tug. More grit in the eye.
Got it. First stitch out.
Number two. Snip.
Tug. Tug. Tug. Tug. Scrape. Didn’t want to come.
Bigger tug. Gushing now from the eyes. Aaah good.
Got it. Number two stitch out.
Last one. Snip. Dig. Snip.
Tug. Tug. TUG.
TUG!
Telephone rang. Excuse me I must get this.
Without loosening his grip on the tweezers or the tweezers' grip on the final stubborn stitch he turned around and picked up the phone to answer it.
My lip extended until I resembled a cod. Or trout. Or any fish on a hook.
Call ended. Tug. Tug. Then it was over. Last stitch removed. Off the hook.
Actually it was nowhere as bad as I’ve described, but I enjoyed writing it and that’s the main game.
———
I was mentally preparing for my second sally of the year, stocking up the pantry, when I caught a MAN COLD. Won’t bore with the details but it was three or four weeks before I felt fit enough to venture into the Victorian winter misery … 3º each morning, feels like -2º, maximum 8º. In the meantime I wondered what exactly was in the 2018 flu shot I’d suffered through all those weeks ago. Probably inoculation for last year's virus. Ah well.
———
Shooting the Silos
So eventually I did manage to hook up the van, jump in the ute, and head off. A little too hastily as it turned out, because I forgot some key pantry ingredients and never really got into the camping groove during this short trip.
The grand plan was to visit the ten silo art sites in Victoria. Six in the west, along a well-established Silo Art Trail (http://siloarttrail.com/home) . One in Central Victoria at Rochester, and three in Central-East Victoria just north of Benalla. A bit over 1,000 km.
First stop was Mount Franklin, which I reached after driving through the gentrified Woodend and hipsterised Tylden (wall-to-wall face fungus and Steve Jobsian black turtlenecks). Groovy.
Mount Franklin is a brand of spring water.
It’s also a tiny volcanic caldera about 800m diameter with a convenient road through a collapsed part of the wall. Inside Mount Franklin is pleasant woodland including plenty of camping sites and M&F long drops.
The caldera walls provide a lot of shelter from the wind. Which means that campfire smoke sits, and sits, and sits.
The walls also reflect sound. Which means that all conversations and other routine human noises are heard by everyone in all parts of the camping area.
I arrived on a Saturday afternoon, which was a mistake. There were 10 - 15 families and other groups of city folk escaping for the weekend. And so they had to bring their radios (several of which echoed around the caldera basin) and drones, and mountain bikes, and other paraphernalia. Oh joy.
But to be fair the various noises settled down by 11pm and it stayed quiet until around 6:30am when the radios started again (!!!) and several drones started whizzing around taking shots of sunrise.
So I packed up and headed off - early - towards the west.
First stop was Maryborough, which seems to be a fairly prosperous town of around 8,000 in the central goldfields region.
I stopped for cash and a therapeutic coffee, and to admire the public edifices funded, no doubt, by gold mining activities over the years. Gold is still extracted on and off at industrial levels, and there is quite a lot of small scale activity and hobby fossicking.
Suitably refreshed I turned right and headed north through woodland towards St Arnaud in the Wimmera region.
I refuelled and de-coffeed in St Arnaud, then drove west, further into the Wimmera. I hadn’t planned where I would stay, so when I saw a little sign pointing north to a remote camping area near a lake I thought "That sounds like me", so I did a u-turn and headed off in the direction indicated.
The roads were sealed, but after a while the tarmac started getting narrower, and narrower, until it was just wide enough for ute and van. Eventually I reached Walkers Lake, near Lake Batyo Catyo, on the way to Cope Cope.
So I had a look around ...
... and eventually figured this was my type of place. No other campers. One boat on the lake, and a couple of day visitors. I raised the van roof, started the fridge, and otherwise set myself up. The boat people and other visitors left by 5pm and I had the lake to myself. Eventually the sun started to go down and I got some good light for photos.
I was on the west side of the lake so I was looking east as the moon rose in the evening.
Very peaceful overnight, and early the next morning - looking west - I watched the moon drop towards the horizon.
The light that morning was quite nice, so I was able to get what I thought were decent shots around the lake.
I stayed at that very pleasant little lake a couple of nights, then packed up and set off early in the morning to see how I would go shooting those silos (or attacking those windmills if you prefer Don Quixote). Walkers Lake is only a few km from Rupanyup (pronounced Ra-PAN-yip), near Horsham, at the southern start of the silo art trail.
So a short drive later I was approaching Rupanyup, with the silos on the horizon.
I took a photo …
… and headed off.
The silos were about 30 - 40 minutes apart. The next stop was Sheep Hills.
I turned around, and found one of my prickly old friends from the Darling Downs!
Drove north. For a moment I thought I was in Microsoft country. I was waiting for the XP logo to come bouncing over the paddocks. That, or a herd of Teletubbies.
And so I arrived in Warracknabeal mid morning. Another thriving regional town. Population about 2,500. No silo, but plenty of coffee shops.
Time for coffee, and the local watering hole supplied me with a monster serving that hit the spot.
Onwards and northwards. This time to Brim, which I believe was the first silo artwork in Victoria. The web site said so.
A bit further up the road was Rosebery (yes, one r)
Then past some scrub on the edge of the Wyperfeld National Park (a future journey, perhaps)
Then to Patchewollock, the northernmost of this group of silos.
Southeast to Lascelles
I thought I had done well, but I missed the woman who was painted on the other side of the Lascelles silo. Ah well. Next time.
So in my ignorance I headed east. I had been thinking of stopping overnight at Sea Lake township, at the southern end of Lake Tyrell. But I was underwhelmed when I arrived and figured that I was ready for a bit of pampering, so drove on.
Eventually I stayed overnight in a motel in Swan Hill, which was a bit out of my way but it had plenty of naughty food outlets so I indulged. And showered.
The next morning I headed off again, south east, this time to Rochester on the Northern Highway.
Found the local IGA supermarket, bought some food, and headed off to Green’s Lake a few klicks to the south east.
This lake was quite nice, about a km across and a few km long.
As the sun went down the wind dropped
The lake was absolutely calm
And it was totally silent.
No voices, no traffic noise, no wildlife, no aircraft. Zip. Eerie.
The next morning I beat a retreat from the silence and went east again, through Shepparton, through the fruit growing areas of Ardmona and Goulburn Valley (blossoms were out in force), and further east to Tungamah.
I went looking for a coffee in Tungamah, but the only advertised coffee “nook” was out the back of the pub. After a couple of dead end attempts to navigate the maze of 19th century corridors and 20th century building improvements I gave up and got back in the ute.
South again, this time to Devenish.
And on to Goorambat, just north of Benalla.
That’s a Southern Boobook (aka Morepork), that I had come across last year (https://stevies-wanderings.blogspot.com/2017/11/things-that-go-tap-tap-in-night.html)
Then to Benalla, where I called in to see Bob, and a bit of a yakkety catch up, and scrounged a cuppa. Thanks Bob! Looking good, Bob!
And finally down the freeway to Kilmore, ready for the ute's 20k service.
So this was a short circuit of about 1300km (the pink line; the green line was my May-June adventure).
So this was a short circuit of about 1300km (the pink line; the green line was my May-June adventure).
Five nights, six days. One night in a motel, the remainder free camping.
Mountains climbed: 0 (nope, not even Mt Franklin)
Streams forded: 0
Rainbows followed: 0
Dreams found: 0 (still working on it, although those two lakes got close)
Windmills Tilted (silos shot): 10
