It was bright and early on Thursday 27th October 2022, that Marija and I left home and headed to Geelong in Victoria, where we were to catch the Spirit of Tasmania that evening. We had a 688 km journey ahead of us through southeastern South Australia and western Victoria.
We have driven this route many times before, but took the opportunity again of stopping off at the South Australian – Victoria State border to stretch our legs.
We drove into the town of Kaniva in western Victoria to get some lunch. Kaniva is located about 25 km east of the South Australian-Victoria border and about 414 km west of the city of Melbourne.
In 1845, squatter Heighway Jones discovered the country around the current town of Kaniva. By 1846 he had sheep grazing in the area and by 1851 the Tattyara run was gazetted with the Tattyara homestead being just a few kilometres from the present town of Kaniva. Tattyara was named after the Yyatyalla aboriginal people who inhabited the area. By December 1881 the Budjik Post Office was opened, but it was renamed Kaniva in 1882. The exact meaning of the name Kaniva is unclear. The name may be aboriginal in origin. It is possible that it is derived from Kinninvia in Durham England, or from Cniva who was a third century Gothic chieftain.
Whilst in Kaniva we decided to activate the Kaniva 2 silo VK-KNV3 which can be located in Progress Street. The activation of the silo was for the Silos On The Air (SiOTA) program.
The silo is run by GrainCorp a leading Australian agribusiness which has a 100 year history. Construction of the Kaniva silo commenced in January 1939 and completed in November that year. The silo has a 100 tonne per hour receiving and out loading rate.
Construction on the Kaniva silo began in January 1939 and it was completed in November that same year. Five years earlier in 1934, the Victorian Grain Elevators Board, now known as GrainCorp was established. It was at about this time that a silo construction program commenced along the railway lines in Victoria. This was as a result of large losses of grain due to wet weather, rodents and insects, as prior to the silos, bagged wheat was stacked and stored in the railway yards waiting to be loaded onto rail wagons.
The Kaniva silo is known as a Geelong Concrete Silo. A total of 91 silos of this type of design were constructed in Victoria between 1935 and 1950. This type of silo consists of open topped bins with corrugated galvanised iron roofs. This type of silo was constructed at rail sidings on railway lines intended to serve the Geelong Terminal Elevator. The Kaniva silo had a capacity of taking 2,950 tonnes and received 4,979 tonnes of wheat in the 1939-40 harvest. The silo was in use until 2014.
The Kaniva 2 silo features silo art which has become incredibly popular in Australia.
The design on the Kaniva 2 silo features the Australian Hobby, a raptor. The silo also has a Plains sun orchid and a salmon/pink sun orchid. The silo art design at Kaniva is a tribute to native flora and fauna found in the nearby Little Desert National Park.
The video below shows painting of the silo in progress.
The artists for the Kaniva 2 silo were David Lee Pereira, assisted by Jason Parker. A local photographer, Cindy McDonald provided the reference images. About 400 litres of paint were used and the mural took around 200 hours to complete. The silo art at Kaniva was completed in October 2020.
We operated from the vehicle for this activation, running the Icom IC7000, 100 watts, and the Codan 9350 self tuning antenna mounted on the rear of our Toyota Hi Lux 4WD.
Together was made a total of 12 contacts. Unfortunately we only operated on the 40m band as we were pushed for time.
Marija worked the following stations on 40m SSB:-
- VK7XV/p (Walls of Jerusaleum National Park VKFF-0513)
- VK2VH
- VK4AAC
- VK3PF
I worked the following stations on 40m SSB:-
- VK2MET
- VK1AO
- VK2HQ/p (Bomaderry Creek Regional Park VKFF-1779)
- VK3PF
- VK2SLB
- VK7XV/p (Walls of Jerusaleum National Park VKFF-0513)
- VK2VH
- VK4AAC
References.
- Australian Silo Art Trail, 2022, <https://www.australiansiloarttrail.com/Kaniva>, viewed 30th November 2022.
- GrainCorp, 2022, <https://www.graincorp.com.au/about-us/>, viewed 30th November 2022.
- The Silo Trail, 2022, <https://silotrail.com.au/types-of-silos/geelong-concrete-silo/>, viewed 30th November 2022
- Wikipedia, 2022, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaniva>, viewed 30th November 2022.
VK5PAS 