TOUR CANCELLED

Friday, 6 May, we will travel to Rookwood Cemetery and will be met by a guide for a Ships and Shipwrecks Tour of the cemetery. Each participant is asked to bring a donation of $10 for the Friends of Rookwood Cemetery for the upkeep of the Cemetery. We will commence the tour at St. Michael’s Chapel, Mortuary One in the Catholic Cemetery at 10am.

We will meet at the Rookwood Cafe at 9.30am for coffee or tea. Breakfast can be ordered if needed. Turn right off Centenary Drive into Weeroona Rd and enter Rookwood Cemetery. The cafe car park is the first on the left.

The tour will focus on Ships and Shipwrecks. In the 19th Century, hundreds of thousands of convicts and immigrants made the always hazardous voyage at a time when an average of one ship a week was lost in Australian waters. Well into the 20th century, ocean travel was the only way in and out of Australia. Headstones at Rookwood bring to mind some of those journeys and disasters.

Names of the famous and lesser-known wrecks are recorded on many family monuments.

Hear too, about the early years of the Australian Navy and the Sydney Squadron of the Royal Navy on the Australia Station.

To enable private research, both the General Cemetery and the Catholic Cemetery have online deceased search engines and staff can be contacted to answer your questions regarding family and friends’ grave sites, maps, etc.

We will have lunch at the cafe. Also, the place to pick up a coffee before the tour. We will meet at the cafe at 9.30 am and later at 12.30 for lunch.

The Sydney War Cemetery and Garden of Remembrance are situated next to the cafe and well worth a visit. The books of Remembrance are available to look up a loved one.

We will leave for Newcastle no later than 2.30pm for our trip home.

This is a self-drive tour and will be held unless it is raining cats and dogs. I will post on NFHS Facebook page if cancelled by 7am on the day.

If you wish to attend, please contact me on [email protected] and book your place or text me on 0427 577 598.