Fawkner

Nineteen kilometres north of the centre of Melbourne, Fawkner flanks the Hume Highway and lies just east of Tullamarine and the city's international airport.

The highway and the Tullamarine Freeway give direct road access to the city while Fawkner is also on the northern rail link to Melbourne.

Fawkner is watered by a number of creeks, including Merri and Edgars, which feed into the Lake Reservoir. Edwards Lake Park sits on the suburb's eastern flank, while Pentridge, the state's most forbidding gaol for 150 years, straddles the southern border with Coburg.

Faintly forbidding, too, is the municipal claim that Fawkner and neighbouring Coburg are the final resting places of more than 400,000 Melbournians.

Fawker, in fact, hosts Australia"s largest "single cemetery entity". The Fawkner Crematorium and Memorial Park extends over 297ha which are landscaped with manicured lawns, fragrant rose gardens, fountains, lakes and ponds.

The memorial park is still served by a railway station which, from 1906 to 1939, was the terminus for special trains made up of one first class and two second class carriages, a guard"s van and a "mortuary carriage" carrying the deceased and mourners from Melbourne.

Today a restored mortuary carriage stands alongside the park"s tearooms and kiosk.