Victoria | organised castle

Today we ventured to Shepparton, a regional city which is a couple of hours drive north-east of where we live. The reason for our visit was twofold, seeing the Brett Whiteley exhibition at the Shepparton Art Museum and going to the SPC Factory Shop. For those who are not familiar with the acronym, it stands for Shepparton Preserving Company, an Australian food processing company based in Shepparton which is well-known for its various canned fruits and vegetables. I was hoping to stock up on canned tomatoes but more on that in my next post.

I did not think to take any photos of the very recent building which houses the Shepparton Art Museum. The current location opened to the public in November 2021. Here is a photo I found online.

The exhibition we visited was excellent but I chose to simply enjoy the works rather than trying to photograph them.

We then walked up to the rooftop terrace where we caught this view which is almost the reverse of the previous image.

On the way up the central staircase I spotted this artwork. It is actually a timber ladder suspended from the ceiling against a circular mirror which creates the illusion of the ladder extending infinitely upwards. Really intriguing………….

The design of the large glass windows frame the view to the lake and beyond.

The spectacular patterns on the bark of these eucalypts caught my eye from the outdoor area outside the museum cafe where we had a delicious lunch. The food was excellent and the majority of the menu was gluten free.

After we left Shepparton we took a short detour off the main road to see the historic Toolamba Bridge. The single lane, timber planked bridge which spans the Goulburn River was opened in 1900.

We made one more stop on our way home. These photos show some silo art at Colbinabbin. The series was too big to fit into a single photo so the 3 photos show the sequence. The idea of painting a silo began in 2015 in Western Australia and has expanded since then to encompass silos, tanks and water towers in dozens of rural towns across the country. The themes are many and varied but always have a strong local influence. The resultant Art Trails have reinvigorated many of the rural communities.

Next time I will share the details of our shopping exploits from today.

We were away from home for less than 23 hours on the weekend. Although we did have a specific purpose and destination it was almost as much about the journey.

When we go to Melbourne we drive or catch the train from Castlemaine depending on the reason and our destination. Catching the train means that we have to drive about 15km from home and leave the car in the station car park for the day. We have also arranged a lift from friends when our trip involved getting to the airport for overseas travel.

This time we made a conscious decision to make use of the very intermittent bus service from our small town to Castlemaine. We left home after lunch on Saturday and walked about 15 minutes to the bus stop.

After the short bus ride we arrived at Castlemaine Railway Station in plenty of time to connect with the next train to Melbourne.

The train terminates at Southern Cross Station.

Our next step was a short walk across the road to catch a tram. This is one of the older style trams. The ones that run the 96 route are the newer, double-length, flat floor models.

The No 96 tram passes Southern Cross Station on its route from St Kilda to East Brunswick. We were going to the terminus at East Brunswick. It was then a short 200m walk to our overnight accommodation at an Air BnB. The tram terminus was also directly outside the Lomond Hotel which was the reason for our adventure.

We went to the Lomond Hotel on Saturday evening for dinner and to see a band, ‘Streams of Whiskey’.

It was a fabulous evening and we definitely made correct decision to find accommodation nearby as the music began at 9pm and concluded about 11.30pm.

After a comfortable night at our accommodation we were off and ready to leave just before 9am and simply retraced our steps and public transport options before arriving home at midday on Sunday.

Back at Southern Cross and the train is ready to board.

The bus dropped us off around the corner from home.

I know public transport is not an option for everyone or for all situations but if you have the time and are prepared to do a bit of pre-planning it can work in many instances. Thanks to reduced regional fares/concession/weekend fares the total transport cost for our return adventure was $22.80. Moreover, we did not have to drive or find parking.