My good friend Michael Ball of Sydney took a recent trip to Kelly country to attend Ned's Last Supper at the Old Melbourne Gaol and stopped off at the Benalla cemetery where he found a very nice Kelly Gang tribute there. Next to the tree by Joe Byrne's grave someone had taken four railroad spikes and on each one was the name of a Kelly Gang member and their years of birth and death. They were then driven into the ground where I hope they stay a good long time to honour Ned, Joe, Dan and Steve. That was a very thoughtful and wonderful tribute. Thank you to the person who conceived the idea and created them. If we are lucky, maybe the so-called souvenir hunters will leave them alone. (Hopefully by publicizing the very existence of the spikes it won't alert these types of low-class/no-class thieves to them..that is if they have not already been looted by now!) He also saw where people had tied red sashes/ribbons to the tree in tribute, as well as the traditional custom of leaving flowers on the grave.
He also noted that some of the unmarked graves from his visits had been given markers including Ned's grandmother Mary Quinn.
I don't usually use photos on this blog, preferring the words to stand on their own, but this is one time that a picture is worth a thousand words!
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