Murtoa township Victoria Australia for Treasure Tuesday

 

It is a township through which I must invariably pass on my way to Horsham. In former days, I would often pause there, undertaking locum duties on weekends, and the journey itself, meandering through a succession of rural settlements, was a source of quiet pleasure. Murtoa, with its deep roots in both nature and human endeavour, rests amid fertile plains once traversed by the Jardwa people, whose presence shaped the land long before European settlement. The town later grew around the railway and the great grain silos, including the celebrated Murtoa Stick Shed, a remarkable relic of wartime ingenuity. Yet the changing face of medicine has altered my connection to this place; where once I served in person, the rise of telehealth clinics has supplanted such visits, and my footsteps are now absent from its streets, though memory and history bind me still to its fields and heritage.

Sony A7RIV

FE 24mm f1.4 GM

Linking Treasure Tuesday

Murtoa Stick Shed, Victoria for Treasure Tuesday

 

For the past four years I have made the monthly journey to Horsham, where I attend to my professional duties within the local hospital, nursing homes, and community clinics. The drive has become a familiar one, and on each occasion I pass through the modest township of Murtoa. This settlement is distinguished above all by its famed “Stick Shed,” a structure of both national and historical significance.

The Stick Shed, officially known as Murtoa No. 1 Grain Store, was constructed in 1941–42 at the height of the Second World War, when wheat surpluses threatened to overwhelm conventional storage facilities. Built in only four months, it was intended as a temporary measure, yet it endures as the last remaining example of several such sheds once scattered across Victoria. Its extraordinary interior is supported by 560 unmilled mountain ash poles, rising like a vast cathedral of timber and corrugated iron. At 265 metres in length, 60 metres in width, and 19 metres in height, it could accommodate up to 92,500 tonnes of wheat. Once regarded simply as a utilitarian granary, it is now recognised as an engineering feat of national heritage, earning its place on the Australian National Heritage List in 2014.

My blog friend Stefan would, I suspect, remain unimpressed by my indulgence in ultra-wide-angle compositions of the building. Yet I find myself rather taken with the subdued, muted tones with which I have treated my photographs; they seem to lend an atmosphere befitting its austere grandeur, and in turn they awakened in me many recollections of past journeys.

On a lighter note, I was able to meet Joel over the weekend for a restorative bowl of pho. On this occasion there was no photography—only conversation, laughter, and the easy comfort of friendship. It was a simple pleasure, but one deeply felt.

Sony A7RV

Laowa 9mm f5.6 

Linking Treasure Tuesday