2017 April 21st

Patchewollock silo

We awoke to a fine cloudy day. The rain had been heavy over night and we suspect that about 50 mls has fallen. The camping ground has drained and looks refreshed. By 9.30 am we were ready to leave.
We enjoyed exploring several of the small Mallee Towns. After visiting Yaapeet on Thursday and finding everything so quiet and closed we did not have high expectations. Hopetoun proved to be a much busier centre with a good range of shops. Patchewollock was again very quiet with only a few shops. We sat in the rail yard to eat our lunch. The nearby grain silo had a wonderful mural painted on it..depicting a young wheat farmer looking to the horizon. After the rain, a small lake had been formed. The birds were really enjoying it. From here we headed west toward the Wyperfeld N.P. to make our camp at the Casuarina Camping Ground. This is a lovely camp with Buloke trees and a few Mallee trees and Cyprus pines. Tomorrow we will explore on foot and in our vehicle. Let me finish with words from Dorothea McKellar's poem called My Country…'The wide brown lands and flooding rains'…How apt they are for this Victorian Mallee country