Lights on the Hill

Last Sunday we went out to Mt Beppo to photograph all those headstones in their cemeteries. Mt Beppo with a mere handful of houses boasts three cemeteries, two churches and a hall; somehow the numbers just don't add up. It was not a pleasant experience as it turned out; it was very hot and the sun was catching the headstones in a way that made their polished surfaces reflect so it was hard to take good photos. And, the flies! The flies were terrible, in our eyes, nose and mouth despite the vast quantities of Aerogard we sprayed on every inch of our bodies and clothing. Yuk yuk yuk! Maybe that is why everyone left town!

However, to try to finish off the day on a more positive note, we decided to use our newly acquired hand-drawn street directory of shires west of Brisbane (published by a man who proudly announces in the foreward that he does not have an email address nor a WWW site) to find a back road to Helidon (the place where a lot of the sandstone in Brisbane comes from) and Gatton, so that we might assess the cemeteries there for age, size and other criteria relevant to our project.

Anyhow as we are tootling up the road to the Gatton cemetery, we saw something shining brightly ahead of us, as the setting sun reflected off some gilt work. At first we thought it was a war memorial, but on closer inspection it turned out to a very recently constructed monument to truck and coach drivers, entitled Lights on the Hill (a phrase that apparently comes from a Slim Dusty song -- excuse my ignorance of country music here) with about 150-200 plaques commemorating specific deceased truck and coach drivers. The whole thing is designed to look like the front grill of a large truck.

Anyhow you can visit the project's WWW site or read what the ABC had to say about it. There are some photos of the opening ceremony (a few weeks ago).

There is space to commemorate more deceased truck and coach drivers if you have any among your family and friends (incidentally my grandfather who died in 1935 was a truck driver). See here for forms.

Queensland never ceases to surprise me with the remarkable things you find in small towns.