I have another  Mallee trip planned in early November with my base camp being  at Murrayville.  So I took the opportunity  whilst traveling along the Calder Highway between Ouyen and Mildura to rendezvous  with Judith Crispin  to  go to Lajamanu in the northern Tanami Desert to do a little exploring and photographic scoping. As I hadn’t been on the Calder Highway  before so I was interested in seeing what this part of the Mallee  had to offer  re my approach to photographing the Mallee.

The Calder Highway, I discovered,  runs through Mallee country that includes the  Murray Sunset National Park and the Hattah Kulkyne National Park. Though I didn’t have  the time to explore either of these national parks,    I did briefly walk around the Hattah Kulkyne  park.  It is typical mallee country with extensive low scrub and open native woodland:

Though I  was wandering around at a good time–there was  the soft late afternoon light—I still struggled to photograph this landscape. The low scrub is so messy. 

Further along the Calder Highway  towards the regional town  of Mildura I came across some silos on a railway line at Carwarp. I was surprised by the size of  the site, given that Carwarp did not appear to a town or a hamlet. It was just this silo complex.

The silo site didn’t  have that historical-decay look nor did it appear to be abandoned like many of the silos on the Mallee Highway.  As there was no one around, I took some scoping photos from an elevated position that was in an ideal location.

I reckoned  that this rural architecture would be ideal for a future large format photoshoot in the late afternoon on my next trip.