By Corey Everitt
A special moment in Bunyip happened this year as the memorial to the Daly Waters tragedy which rocked the small town over 50 years ago was restored and remembered in a moving tribute that brought all the families of old Bunyip together.
In March the Gazette reported on Dave Papley and Peter Dowie, both life members of the Bunyip Football Club, and work to restore the memorial dedicated to the five men from the town who tragically died in 1967 during a holiday after their plane crashed just out of Daly Waters in the Northern Territory.
The restoration was a defiant statement that Bunyip will always remember Peter Kay, Barry Sullivan, Noel Heatley, Mike Breheny and Don Smith, and the shocking loss it was to the town to lose these promising young men well known and loved in the community and the football club.
“As a kid, you really did respect it,” Dave Papley said.
“I was a mate with one of the Heatley’s and we knew what it was for.
“The idea of doing it up was to get people to look at it and then they ask questions and read the story and keep the history going.”
When the restoration was finished, Dave and Peter along with the football club organised a special opening of the memorial on 29 April which brought people from near and afar to Bunyip who still remember the tragedy.
Most of all, the families of all five men attended and a member of each planted a rose to begin the community garden enveloping the memorial.
No matter how much the town has changed over the years, the memorial shows that Bunyip’s respect and memory of those they have lost is unwavering.
