At beachfronts and headlands along the Australian east coast, desecration of innocent rocks with hand-painted dedications and memorials to departed and/or loved relatives has created widespread and intrusive visual pollution. Presumably there are no bodies to accompany them, but who knows if ashes were scattered.
On mid-north coast NSW the Hastings and Nambucca River mouths are particularly egregious examples, but there are plenty of others. The appropriation of public spaces with these maudlin inscriptions is probably an inevitable consequence of the social media age, where everything is a public ‘platform’ for private expressions of sentimentality.
At the surfing mecca of Crescent Head, there is a scrappy collection of memorial stones and stick crosses alongside the path to the headland. But amongst the dross there is a headstone gem, which recently fell over, and at the risk of instagrammatism, it speaks to us all:
KOOKYNIE COURIER 