Don't ask me how...but...
These pics come from an old 1800's goldmining town called Walhalla in the Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. Visited there as a child and never got over how these people must have toiled over their funerals and burials. It's in a valley closed off and locked in by forest, and the town had the most unusual layout, like you were going into a world that was slightly off key. Spooky stuff for a small girl. The steepness of the cemetery hill tells it's own tale of hardship and how the people must have suffered. It was freezing down in the valley, at the foot of these tombs. No chance of forgetting death here, when the cemetery is the main feature that looks down on the town. Usually it's meant to be a church that people look up to, not a cemetery. Upside down, did I say? Off key? Don't ask me..
posted by Imogen Crest @ 2:54 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
I love old cemeteries. I once found one in Nebraska with ten little headstones, all joined, ages "zero" to 11, from 1918, the flu epidemic. It was touchingly sad.
I know - they are places of a particular kind of melancholy, which when properly understood, become imbued with a haunting kind of beauty.
I've been to a small private cemetery where the day of death on all 5 stones where the same for
the Mother, Father and Children.
Haunts me to this day...those simple sad stones.
Anita Marie
A sad thing indeed.
The cemeteries that bought me undone were in the fields of Flanders and in Belgium. We visited a lot of them and wept like babies as we stood beside white crosses for boy soldiers. The words '17 Year Old Australian' '19 Year Old Australian' bought me to my knees. Ypres was a very special part of our journey through Europe.
On a lighter note one of my favourite cemeteries is on the cliff top overlooking the ocean at Narooma on the East coast of N.S.W. It seems like an idyllic spot to lie. But perhaps it would not seem so idyllice on blustery, winter days.
L'Enchanteur your comments on the graves resonate - we often go to the Shrine and to hear the lone bugle makes me weep. I would have been like you at those graves. I know there is a danger in being too emotional over it, but to me, why not weep for the missing? It might help a little. The cemetery at Narooma sounds peaceful with a lovely outlook.
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