Since I had investigated the cemetery locations and graves before commencing the adventure, it was a lot easier than going in blind. Using the Find-A-Grave list that I had sorted into the various religious sections from the cemetery map, as I stated in my end-of-year 2024 blog – “An Adventure” – https://ancestorfamily.com/2024/12/13/an-adventure/ where I wrote “… little bit easier and maybe quicker. We shall see what happens in reality.”
Sunday Morning.
It’s Sunday morning. First stop, breakfast. We drove into the Mackay City Centre and found a cafe. After breakfast, we headed back to the car, I remembered a number of my parental ancestors had connections with the Holy Trinity Anglican Church. It was across the road in Gordon Street. I had the opportunity to get access inside – a bonus.
Then, we prepared ourselves for the morning in the sun by making sure we had headwear and sunblock applied to all exposed body areas. There is a funny side to this which will come up in part 3.
Cemetery.
It was a short drive to the Mackay City Cemetery. We were ready to locate the various graves/plots in the different sections within the cemetery. Easy? Ah no, it was difficult to know where rows started and from which end. Some rows appeared to be parts of another. Once the row numbering was well, sorted or understood, more so the direction (from east to west), made it slightly easier.
The Presbyterian area is divided into two sections. The fun was determining where section 1 ended and where section 2 began. We located my maternal father’s parents’ grave quickly in section 1. In the midst of this, there was a sudden downpour.
No rain had been forecast! It was a rapid retreat for cover. This was when it was noticed that a large area of scrub, near the cemetery, had been burnt. The car was now covered in wet black ash!
Back to grave searching. Eventually, my mother’s parents’ graves were located in the Presbyterian area, section 2. The division between the sections was some imaginary line easily missed.
It was on to the Church of England area. This was easier, as we’d worked out how the rows worked. Locating my maternal grandmother’s side of the family happened fairly quickly. The plot had been painted green and it blended well into the area.
Burnt Tree.
Then, it was off to locate my father’s grandparents in another area of the cemetery. I had always thought they had been buried at the Walkerston cemetery until I found them in Find-A-Grave.
Their graves were located at the base of a tree that was partially burnt, unlike the tree two rows further on. This tree had been completely burnt out and was marked with pink tape. I would think it was now dangerous and possibly up for removal.
We returned to the car only to realise that besides the car being covered in ash, so were we! We used our drinking water to wash down our arms, legs, and face to remove the ash. As you can imagine, we didn’t get it all.
No Drones.
During the visit to the Mackay Cemetery only photographs, camera and/or phone movies could be taken. The cemetery is located on the direct flight path into Mackay Airport so no drone footage was possible.
Lunch.
As it was fast approaching 1pm, we decided to have lunch in Mackay before heading to Walkerston cemetery.
See you in Part 3…
Ancestor Family 