Stuart Rowe was heading to Ballarat for a photography exhibition three years ago when he learned the Victorian border was about to shut and found himself in Batlow instead. It proved a serendipitous detour. The IT professional from Sydney’s north shore is now the proud owner of a former automotive workshop in the tiny town known for its apples, on the edge of the Snowy Mountains.
Batlow is famous for its apple orchards. Credit: Destination NSW Rowe and his wife Marie are among a small but growing number of Sydneysiders eager to help Batlow locals resurrect a town devastated by bushfires four years ago, where $500,000 worth of publicly funded art now sits amid the scars of natural disaster and economic decline. “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Rowe – who once bought and restored a 1937 hearse – quips, in between stripping paint from the walls and speaking to locals about what venture will best fit the space.
“The whole region seems to me like a massive opportunity.” “The Seated Man” by artist Sean Henry, on the Snowy Valleys Sculpture Trail in the Bago State Forest. Most of Batlow’s former shops sit empty or have been turned into housing over the past 30 years, meaning there are only a handful of places, including a pub and a bakery, to serve the thousands of visitors now coming to the region to see the Snowy Valleys Sculpture Trail, a public art collection opened two years ago that winds it way through Batlow and surrounding.