Just down the road: Tongala

You can also visit the outdoor art gallery showcasing seven murals relating to the Goulburn River at the Tongala Town Square painted by Tongala Street Artists’ Murray Ross, Jill Conway and Teena Savage.

These depict horse riding in the High Country, Eildon Dam, trout fishing in one of the Goulburn’s tributaries, yabbying in the lower reaches of the river, camping and canoeing at Yambuna and a farmer irrigating.

“We hope it becomes a bit of a town square where people can gather and enjoy some art while learning a bit about the Goulburn River,” Murray said.

“It’s all about making a sustainable future for Tongala and the surrounding region.

“We need to get visitors and tourists here. Keeping the shops open is the biggest problem in our town.”

The murals translate local folklore and stories into art, immortalising them for the next generations.

“Some of (the murals) tell the culture of the town and the district,“ Murray said.

“There’s one that tells the funny side of things, how a local smarty came up from Melbourne to the local shearing shed.

“He said ‘I’m the best of everything, I can shear quicker than all you guys’, and the local blokes said ‘oh yeah, probably; tell you what, I’ll bet you 10 bucks’, so he bet him 10 bucks — but the local bloke let him win!

“He said ‘here’s your 10 bucks you won’, so now he says, ‘tell you what, double or nothing. I bet you can’t shear a sheep blindfolded’, and the bloke said, ‘oh yeah, all right, I’ll take that on’.

“So (the local bloke) went into the shed and got the biggest ram he could find, took off his scarf, blindfolded the sheep and shorn him no worries.”

Another amusing Tongala tale from years ago that’s told in the murals is the case of the absentee train carriage.

“On the train line, the school children used to go by diesel motor from here to Echuca for school,” Murray said.

“The boys used to sit in the front carriage and the girls in the back carriage. So out at Koyuga one time while they were stopped picking up people, the boys pulled out the pin and left the girls behind.”

Tongala’s outdoor gallery of murals was named as a finalist in the 2021 Australian Street Art Awards for ‘Best Street Art Trail’, for its more than 50 outstanding murals painted by the community.

The town has been transformed by the local Lions Club into a street art gallery that highlights the history, culture and industries of the town.

“Quite a number of really fantastic little stories about the history of Tongala, what's happened in the past and specific events and so forth,” awards director Liz Rivers said.

Local volunteer artists invested hundreds of hours over the past two years to produce the street art trail, with many of the works accompanied by interpretive stories.

“Tongala specifically set up their their murals as a visitor attraction,” Liz said.

“And the community itself created the art, so you couldn't get a bigger, better community engagement than that.”

Fifty murals might not sound like a lot, but for a small town such as Tongala, it’s a huge achievement. There are probably more murals in Tongala than there are public buildings.

“The awards inform travellers about the magnificent array of publicly accessible art that can be found in every corner of the country and the communities that have invested in these attractions because they’re keen to welcome visitors,” Liz said.

“You can walk around Tongala in not a terribly long time, so to fit 50 murals in they’ve done an incredible job.”