Pioneer Cemetery, Chincilla

We took a drive westward on the Warrego Highway to visit Dalby and Chinchilla. the towns were nice but nothing to  get too excited about. However, the Pioneer Cemetery in Chinchilla was a pretty interesting place.


As is often the case in Australian cemeteries, many graves has a cement border or a metal fence around them. Also, as is not unusual, many of these borders are in bad shape.

A few of the grave boundaries are made of wood. Here is one that is collapsing, as if it were a line of dominos all stood up and caused to start the cascading tumble into the next neighboring grave and causing that stone marker to fall. This slow-motion cascade appears to have been frozen in time by the shutter when in fact, reality feels more like one of those bullet-time videos where you are walking around a scene moving much slower than you. For me, this somehow feeds into the concept that this is a place where no one moves again. It is all just a bullet-time with us whirring about in a relative lightening speed.

Some of the graves are simple and spare.

Others have more ornate markers.

There was a shed of some sort near the center of the cemetery. In front of this standa broken marker. A broken building, a broken marker, and a life ended.

The upside down dove is a common symbol of death found in cemetery art.

And occasionally, there is a simple setting that yields a haunting composition. The pure, white gravestone sitting among the decaying markers and fencing gives this place serene feeling. The stone that marks the life appears to have taken on a glow of its own and seems to radiate the person back to the world.

Cemeteries are a special place and if you keep reading this blog, perhaps one day, we'll convince you that you can also find beauty and happiness wandering among the dead.