Waikumete Cemetery

New Zealand’s largest cemetery, and like all cemeteries, chock full of history. Some claim there is only one larger graveyard in the entire southern hemisphere, Rookwood in Sydney. Waikumete was founded in 1886 and on 108 hectares, so the people of Auckland have kept using it with 70,000 burials and still counting. It has it’s own church, the Chapel of Good Faith in the Oaks, the current building replacing a smaller one in 1952.

For those who are not superstitious or spooked by graveyards, Waikumete can be a peaceful place to spend some time and offers good walking paths and great views. For history lovers, here stands the memorial to the victims of New Zealand’s worst aviation mishap, the Mt Erebus Disaster. The 1979 crash happened when and Air New Zealand DC10 tourist flight crashed headfirst into the Antarctic mountain due to mathematical miscalculations. Two hundred and thirteen of those who died on the mountain were able to be returned to their families. The remains of the 44 unidentified victims were interred here with a granite memorial in a sombre service in February 1980.

What followed by way of investigation and trial formed a huge landmark in New Zealand’s aviation and social history. Even despite the huge losses of the Canterbury Earthquakes, Mt Erebus Disaster (also known as Air new Zealand Flight 901) remains New Zealand’s largest peacetime disaster.

This memorial remembers those 44 who were not able to be formally identified, and remains returned to families. A movement to create a national memorial to all the victims, was gathering momentum in 2016 and in 2019 it was announced that six designs had been short listed for siting in theDove Meyer Robinson Park.

There are other historically significant memorials here including the Holocaust Memorial, NZ Influenza Epidemic memorial and the ANZAC Cenotaph. A set of interesting mausoleums is situated along Magnolia Way, the first belonging to the Corban Wine Family and having been there since 1914. In 2016, a chap who had not yet died won an architecture award for a striking new mausoleum.

Waikumete is easy to access by suburban train or bus. The Council have used the cemetery as a platform to trial their 'day of death' Cemetery open day in 2016, and now it is annual event.

Image Credit: Russell Street