Ballina - Pioneer Memorial Park

Ballina sits on the mouth of the Richmond River. During it's development, it served as the port for the shipping of cedar, milk and everything else produced up river. It also served as the cemetery for a lot of the early pioneers.

The original cemetery in Ballina was built across the river from the main settlement. It sat on a piece of land overlooking the mouth of the river and the town itself. A grave reminder of the now deceased. At the time, the area was unoccupied except by ghosts.

The cemetery fell out of use in 1915. After this tiem, the surrounding area become populate with houses and the cemetery became abandonded, overgrown and suitably spooky looking. After a bridge over the river was built, it was decided to clean up the cemetery to encourage people to move into the area.

Someone had the great idea of taking all the remaining tomb stones and putting them into a wall and turning the area into a park. All well and good, but all that was moved was the tomb stones! The bodies are still buried where they were originally buried. I expect it's haunted now by pissed off ghosts, annoyed their tomb stones were moved!

There are some pretty old burials too. Apaprently, the first was in 1853. Their head stones tell the tales of the pioneers. There's a whole lot of drownings, early deaths from disease and various accidents. There's not too many people who lived into a quiet old age.

The cememtery is an interesting place to wander around for half an hour or so, just be careful not to annoy the ghosts!