Several months ago I once again visited the town of Maldon in Victoria.
My purpose, this time, was to collect some inscriptions from the Maldon Cemetery.
Whilst there, I was struck by the beauty of the flowers blanketing the cemetery, known as 4 o'clockers because they open on sunny days around 4 o'clock.

I asked Daryl the caretaker of the cemetery, who had planted them.

He told me this yarn;

"During the gold rush, a South African clipper docked in Melbourne whereby the crew took off for the gleam of gold.

Unable to sail without them, the captain set off to bring them back.
But like many before him he succumbed to a fever and didn't recover.

Back in South Africa, when the news of his death reached his widow, she was immediately struck with the melancholy thought of him lying alone in foreign soil, with no one around him from his homeland.

So, when the next South African ship berthed in Melbourne it carried a small parcel of bulbs to be scattered on a lonely grave in Maldon.
From then on they thrived and spread. Eventually covering the whole cemetery in a rainbow of colours."



Maldon Cemetery
To get there; travel along High Street Maldon towards Baringup for abt 2.5ks. Turn right on Nuggetty Road. You'll see the cemetery on the right
Mirabilis Jalapa = 4 o'clocks