Art in regional towns
Australia has a wonderful art initiative where murals are painted onto large rural installations. It began with silos and now can be found on water towers as well as street landscapes. The idea behind the Silo Art Trail is to encourage people into small regional areas, the towns that host this art tend to be slightly off the normal tourist trail.
Farrell Flat is one of those towns, it's a small rural town of about 300 people about a 90 minute drive from Adelaide. It's also 20km from the Clare Valley wine district and about 22km from Burra. I stopped in Farrell Flat just to see the silo art. It's a beautiful piece showing the last train to come through Farrell Flat and the wheat crops that are a major industry now.
The silos and the nearby weigh station are still very much in operation as during the time I was there I watched a truck and trailer loaded with grain begin to unload it into the silo.
Farrell Flat has a traditional small town country pub, opposite the silos.
There's a small main street with a row of what had been businesses and are now just a post office, with the little exchange library. The 'Bring a book, take a book' type.
The Fruiterer's had been a small greengrocer run by two sisters, there's an interesting information board gives you information on the local history. The Fruiterer's is now a B&B.
As with many rural towns Farrell Flat has an institute building, this one was built in 1912 and looks as thought it's been restored. The front memorial porch was added in 1928.
Farrell Flat was a stop on the old railway line from Peterbourgh and the railway station building still exists. The railway stop was called Farrell's Flat but after the town was officially named Farrell Flat, it was someone's job to paint over the apostrophe and the 's' on the station sign. It still can be seen, so that amused me.
It's worth stopping in Farrell Flat to see the silo art which is beautiful and it's nice to walk around the town and experience the country pub.
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