Shepparton

Shepparton sits at the heart of the state. A city of almost 70 000 living by the banks of the Goulburn River surrounded by river red gum forest and thousands of hectares of fertile irrigated agricultural plains. It is a busy city at the crossroads of several major highways. Here the Goulburn River is joined by creeks and rivers, the landscape crisscrossed by irrigation canals, the native forest giving way to an oasis of fruit trees. Home to people from around the globe speaking 50 different languages, it is a place where you can find hidden family cafes and eat dishes from around the world. It is also place to explore the architecture of magnificent old food factories and head out into the blocks of orchards to find families selling their fruit by the side of the road. This is a city with an arts hub that celebrates the world’s oldest living culture. It is also a centre of development and innovation. Shepparton is both a place of old-fashioned values and the centre of a rapidly changing food bowl that grows a quarter of the state’s agricultural wealth.

Shepparton Art Museum (SAM)
This modern art museum rises from the shores of Lake Victoria by the Goulburn River. Shepparton Art Museum (SAM for short) is recognised for its significant Australian and Indigenous art collections. Opening in 2020 (Louise check?) it has established itself as a stand-out regional gallery. 

SAM includes four galleries over two floors and is home to travelling art exhibitions, the biennial Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award and the national Indigenous Ceramic Award. It is also the base for Kaiela Arts Indigenous gallery, the Greater Shepparton Visitor Centre and Elsewhere Cafe.

Aboriginal Street Art Project
Famous street artist Adnate was commissioned to celebrate famous and important local First Nations people with massive murals on city buildings.  Take a walk around the centre of Shepp, you’ll come across a two-storey depiction of Yorta Yorta man Pastor Sir Doug Nichols, who became Governor of South Australia. Another notable local is Aunty Geraldine Briggs, one of the instigators of the 1967 constitutional referendum that led to Australia’s First Peoples gaining the right to vote.

Mooving Art Herd
A herd of 90 or so fibreglass cows dot Shepparton and surrounding towns, each illustrated with a different design. Some are painted after Andy Warhol or Mondrian, some by school groups, and some by famous artists such as Tank, Tammy Lee Atkinson and Ivan Durrant. You’ll find these colourful cows in parks, outside council buildings, and in random places across Shepparton and the Goulburn Valley. 

The Museum of Vehicle Evolution (MOVE) & Loel Thomson Costume Collection
The Museum of Vehicle Evolution (MOVE) is a massive and expertly curated collection of independent collections of cars, bikes, trucks and machinery housed in a modern warehouse. MOVE tells the story of vehicles from the first to the latest, from the smallest to the fastest. 

It also tells Goulburn Valley’s trucking story of moving food from farms and orchards to the market. A separate wing tells the Furphy story of mobile water tanks that transformed farming and watered troops on the front line in Gallipoli. 

The museum is also the home of the priceless Loel Thompson Clothing Collection which brings together around 7,500 dresses, frocks, stoles, shoes and hats collected over a lifetime by local woman, Loel Thomson OAM. The collection covers clothes worn by Australians – mostly women – over the past 240 years.

Australian Botanic Gardens Shepparton
The transformation of an old tip site into landscape architect-designed native gardens is stunning. The lookout of the gardens rises from the redgum forest like an ancient stone ziggurat. 

Broad, accessible paths lead through different plantings to the summit overlooking a landscape that mirrors the Goulburn Valley. Flowering acacias, grevilleas, banksias and grasses paint an ever-changing palette of colour tied to the seasons. Near the lookout is the Food Garden planted with bush food plants such as karkalla, saltbush, and native spinach.

River Red Gum Forest Walk
Lining the banks of the Goulburn River is a red gum forest with a walk surrounded by towering native trees of silver, green and grey trunks and fine ribbon leaves. Wander the network of pathways that lead through the forest and lose yourself in the majesty of the trees, some half a century old, and some bearing the scars of canoes cut from their bark by Indigenous boat builders many years ago. Look for the flash of sapphire from the wings of the kingfishers and listen for the chorus of frogs who call in autumn and spring after the rains.

The Big Soup Tin

This landmark stands some 20 metres above the Campbell’s factory in Lemnos, painted exactly like a tin of Campbell’s soup. It’s actually a water tank for the factory, and, unlike other giant pieces of kitsch Australiana, it is not open to the public. It is, however, a favourite of photographers who come to the factory gates near sunset to capture this local icon bathed in the last light of day.