Pioneer Cemetery
Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Tue 26 Jan 2016 23:57
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Pioneer Cemetery, Zeehan,
Tasmania
 We had just passed the turning for
the town centre, outbound from Zeehan, when we saw the sign
to the Pioneer Cemetery. Time for a historic bimble mongst the old
gravestones. No sooner than we had left Mabel than there were one or two
horseflies about us.
  A huge area
to explore.
   Some in better
condition than others.
   Some beyond
help.
 Father and
son.
  The one or two horseflies had alerted
some of their friends and many more joined us........as we
read the old headstones.
 A helicopter was dropping his bucket just behind us, many
journeys to and fro, bushfires nearby.
  Swotting as we
go.
 Ruby 1887 – 1918, had a replacement plaque.
     We
saw a couple of people who had drowned, accidents, young people.
  Such poor condition.
Later, I would look up the cemetery. In 2012 there had been
a real surge of enthusiasm in the papers and funding mentioned for restoring the
site, clearly this did not come about. We saw some really old stones, some in
very good condition for their age. Some from the pioneering
days.
  Charles
Reid leans broken against a tree. Now the horsefly nation came to buzz
us, enough was enough.
  Alice, a
lovely lady by all accounts, was to be my last. A cloud of horseflies made
things intolerable, Mabel looked like a welcome beacon and we both ran for it.
Twenty got in with us despite tactics of one door open at a time and Bear
brushing me off before I snuck in. Frantic flapping of pamphlets dispatched the
beasts. Our tally of stabs – three for Bear, two for me. Unlike mosquitos these
blunt-cocktail-stick-wielding-stabbers don’t seem to deterred by his
fur.
ALL IN ALL SUCH A
SHAME
A SURPRISING FIND SAD ABOUT THE
CONDITION |