New Italy: 1881, The Deadman's Hand, Dante and Dad?

The Town of New Italy, New South Wales, Australia

Sitting at the coffee shop, looking towards
the gift shop in New Italy

2016 was a bittersweet year for me, my dad died, my NRL team that I have followed since I was about 14 years-old won their first ever NRL Grand Final (I turned 52 that year) and I was right on the sideline to celebrate the night with other mad Sharkie fans, plus I did three major road-trips and saw more of Australia that year than I've probably seen in my whole life living here.

A young woman I met in the town of
Grafton who had a rabbit with her

At the end of my last road-trip in 2016 after visiting the town of Grafton and meeting the young lady with the pet rabbit - 
Frieda Hughes and the Shamanic Spirit of Art?
I pulled into what I thought was just a glorified coffee shop, but it turned out to be a little town and a museum rolled into one.

As I walked around the museum grounds I started to read about the history of New Italy and was stunned when I read about how the town came to be and the harrowing boat trip that these settlers survived to establish this township.

1881 New Italy was created
And this part of the story below hit me on many levels.

My father hadn't been dead for even a month when I stopped off in New Italy and I read that these poor Italians made it to Australia on the 8th of April, 1881.
My father's birthday was the 8th of April and many decades later his mother (my Nan) would pass away on the 8th of April.
The year 1881 also contained familiar pairs of numbers to me.
A pair of aces and eights is what is known as "the dead man's hand" in poker.
Today is 1/8/18 by the way, or 8/1/18 for my North American friends, which is why I thought I would finally write this post that I have had on the back-burner since the end of 2016, like many other posts that I have been meaning to write, as well.

"Touch" the Deadman's Hand Coincidence

A wishing well or Dante's inferno? 

When I went over to look into the wishing well on the grounds, I was surprised to find it full of twigs and pinecones instead of water.

I guess I thought of Dante's Inferno when I saw the pinecones in the well because my father was cremated a few weeks before at a crematorium where the grounds are full of pinecones (and longtime readers will know what I think about pinecones as metaphysical symbols, right?-) and pine trees which I have written about before -
Mt Thompson: The Place Beyond the Pines?

Mt Thompson Memorial Gardens

New Italy with its wishing well/inferno and pine trees

At the time of my visit to New Italy I was reading Liz Gilbert's book 'Eat, Pray, Love' (in fact I still haven't finished reading it, as I put it down when she got to India in the book and only just started reading it again yesterday when I saw that Caroline Baum had interviewed Liz in 2014 about another book of Liz's that I can't see myself reading anytime soon).

If Only I Could Remember Where I Was When JFK Was Shot, But Can You?

In the book 'Eat, Pray, Love' Liz mentions that Dante's writings were a big part of what made Italian language what it is today.
Plus, here is a bonus synchronicity that I just found out when looking up Dante at Wikipedia, my father died on September 13th and his funeral was on the 16th and according to Wikipedia Dante himself died on September 13th/14th.

Also 'Eat, Pray, Love' is divided into three parts corresponding to the three counties Liz spends time in, Italy, India and Indonesia.
These Italians who settled in New Italy left Italy and cruised on a ship named 'India' and sailed for Indonesia ... but ended up in Australia. 

Anyway, enough of my metaphysical pondering about death and Dante, because most of you reading this post are probably thinking about me like I was thinking about David when I saw him standing in New Italy - clearly I can see that guy's nuts:-)
The male form is just not my thing I'm afraid, so it was good to see there were other statues around New Italy which stimulated my intellect and other things;-)

But nothing around New Italy stimulates me more than a good cup of Italian black coffee, though.

New Italy is well worth investigating if you are ever heading past on Australia's main road and is only about 12 kilometres as the crow flies past the town of Woodburn, or just 693 km north-east of the state capital, Sydney.
So keep your eyes peeled for New Italy when you're driving in the area, so you can grab a coffee to help you keep your eyes peeled on the rest of your journey.

They also sell some nice gifts in the gift-shop.

Ciao for now and happy journeying.

New Italy near Woodburn the site of Australia’s first refugees

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities