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The Middle Aged Spectator visits a silo

The MAS was intrigued by this news story on the Australian ABC's website a couple of weeks ago., and decided to take a day trip to visit. This day trip was a 700km round trip - but worth it.

Thallon is one of those tiny towns that pop up every now and again along the highways or railways of rural Australia. To give some idea of how remote this place is (and how big the State of Queensland is) Thallon is about 530km west of the state capital, Brisbane, and even then it's only about one-third of the way across the state from the ocean.

So, a long way from nowhere, and not a lot of people there, the last time I had heard Thallon mentioned was during a flood. The town, on the Moonie River had been been flooded in both 2010 and 2011.

Now, we hear that the railway has ceased passenger and freight services - just bulk grain transport is available nowadays.

So what does a town do to put itself back on the map? Well, what have they got to show off? Not much, just some bloody big silos; so, why not paint them - turn them into a massive piece of art. And that's just what they did.

 Coming from the north, you first spot these silos when you're still a couple of kilometres out of town. You notice the burst of colour amongst the drab greys and olives of the dry farmland to the west of the Carnavon Highway.

The MAS pulled in near the grain-loading facility (it was very quiet on the day of this visit - I guess it's busier during harvest) and was astonished at the size and colour.


This third picture, a detail of the northern-most silo includes the signatures of the artists whose work this is.

Silo painting is beginning to be a thing in remote places desperately trying to avoid irrelevance and being ignored. This piece from the Brisbane's Courier-Mail gives a little information about the artists and some other silo paintings in rural Victoria, in Brim and Patchewollock.

In doing a little research for this article, the MAS came across this delightful video of kids from Thallon State School, recorded a couple of years ago with well-known Queensland musician Josh Arnold, who has been working on his 'Small Town Culture' project for a couple of years. 

Before leaving Thallon the MAS popped into the Francis Hotel for a quiet frothy. I was the only customer at the time, but was assured it had been very busy. Apparently the MAS wasn't the only person making a point of visiting a remote town to look at a fantastic silo.

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Location: Thallon QLD 4497, Australia

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