A FAMILY HISTORY ROAD TRIP; Another one!

Honouring the Were Brothers and Connecting with Family and Land.

This family road trip, the first one for 2026, had a very interesting impetus that took place in late November 2025—a random message on mine and Alex’s Ancestry account.

The message was from a genealogical researcher named David who was working with an historical military organisation in Australia. They were searching for relatives of servicemen who served in World War 1 & 2.

David was correct. I was related to one of the Fallen, Private Clive Wellington Were, who is my 2nd Cousin three times removed.

We are so lucky, Trove has several photos of Clive printed online, and this one I ran through the Ancestry AI enhancer.

Clive lived in Officer, a small rural village in Victoria, at the time of his enlistment; it is now a suburb of Melbourne, about 48 km southeast of Melbourne’s central business district.

Clive and his brother, Hugh, enlisted together in the 5th Infantry Battalion, 2nd Brigade. Clive was 25 years and four months old, and Hugh was 21 years and seven months old.

They served in the same company of the 5th battalion together, “F” company. They were part of the second wave ashore at ANZAC Cove on the morning of the 25th of April 1915.

Hugh survived that initial landing and the next 24 hours but received a traumatic shrapnel wound through the chest and arm the very next day, the 26th of April. This wounding was so severe that it ended his war service, and he was returned to Australia later that year.

Unfortunately, Clive was not so lucky; he was killed in action somewhere on the jagged ridges above the cove on the 25th, and his body was never recovered. Hence, the reason he was memorialised in Officers’ “Avenue of Trees”.

Sadly, there is not one shred of evidence online of that original avenue of trees. I have checked the State Library Victoria site, the National Library and Trove. There isn’t even a mention in any of the newspapers at the time of the avenue being created or added to when the WW2 fallen were being memorialised.

The Virtual War Memorial Australia site, however, details that the avenue was dedicated and opened on the 26th January 1919, and that its original position was on the northern side of the Main Gippsland Highway, which is now the Princes Highway. It began at the intersection with Starling Road. (Shown below) https://vwma.org.au/explore/memorials/8037

The gates to the entrance of the reserve on the left are known as the Officer Memorial Gates. They were built in 1951 and opened on the 11th of November, in memory of the district’s fallen from both wars. They originally sat 30 meters to the southwest of this site, presumably near the avenue of trees. https://vwma.org.au/explore/memorials/8036

Clive’s name appears on the gate.

The original avenue of trees was cut down in the 1970s when the roads authority expanded the Princes Highway into the dual carriageway we see today. Although I couldn’t find a photo of that avenue, I did manage to find a photo of the Main Gippsland Highway just a couple of km up the road at Pakenham. I’m sure this would have been a view Clive would have been familiar with.

How the community felt about the avenue of trees being removed, or even whether there was a reaction, has been lost to us, and also, why it has taken 50 years to replace them. What was known to us is that the re-dedication ceremony took place in April 2026, and it is all thanks to the efforts of one man, Geoff Griffiths.

When I got in contact with David at the military organisation, he put me in contact with Geoff and explained that he had already organised the replanting of the trees and was now organising the re-dedication ceremony.

Geoff, I discovered, had been working tirelessly for the last two years to get the trees replanted. He shared that he had received a lot of pushback from the different agencies involved, which was very surprising, but finally had the trees in the ground at the end of 2025.

The re-dedication ceremony was planned for ANZAC Day 2026, but apparently, some agencies again pushed back on this, and it had to be moved to the weekend before, Saturday, the 18th April.

Luckily for me, I have the most supportive life partner, my beautiful best friend Alexandra, and she didn’t hesitate to state that she would love for us to attend.

We mentioned the memorial to the boys, and Calan very kindly said that he would sit this one out and come up and look after Leelo for us.

Leelo was very sad that Sarah wouldn’t be able to make it; she had work. Sarah was Leelo’s favourite last Christmas.

Tiled Gallery 1: Courtesy of the Macvean Family Archives

Xander spoke to Alyssa, and both said that they would love to attend with us, and they booked flights and accommodation straight away.

Alex and I decided to make it a road trip and take the van. So we put our itinerary together. Drive to Holbrook, stay the night at the local caravan park, then on to Dandenong Big 4. Dandenong was the only caravan park we could find in the area, and conveniently for us, it is the next suburb over from Officer.

Alex and I got the old Jayco Swan ready.

Tiled Gallery 2: Courtesy of the Macvean Family Archives

After the hour-and-a-half setup time, Alex and I both decided it was time for an update. So six days before our trip, we started looking for a replacement. This is who we found. He already had a name.

Tiled Gallery 3: Courtesy of the Macvean Family Archives

Both Alex and I took to Colin straight away; he had a good feel about him. The couches were really comfortable. He came with a full annex, caravan cover, TV, reversing camera, and he didn’t smell of old cat pee. Welcome to the family, Colin!

Just before we welcomed Colin to the clan, I received an email from a cousin of mine, Alec Duke. My 3x great-grandmother, Christina Strachan, Brookman née Russell, is his 2x great-grandmother. We found each other online about 10 years ago, and Alec was able to share with me the only photo of my 2x great-grandfather and his great-grandfather, George Fairbairn Cox.

Alec, unfortunately, shared that he was facing some quite serious health problems and was emailing to let me know that he might be meeting some of the shared ancestors that we had much sooner than he had hoped.

I loved Alec’s email and let him know. This is my sense of humour: in the face of something shitty that you can’t change, you just hit it with the gallows humour. I told him about the road trip that we were just about to hit out on, and we organised to meet up. He and his wife, Guyvonne, live at Myrtleford, which, luckily for us, is just two hours south of Holbrook and only a slight detour out of our way to Dandenong.

So we had a couple of great wins to start the trip off. Getting to catch up with Alyssa and Xander, meeting a new cousin, Alec and his wife, Guyvonne and getting a new van. Yay!

We got to pick Colin up on Monday night, the 13th of April, basically two days before we were to leave on the morning of the 16th.

I have to share with you another big win for me; it wasn’t pretty, but I managed to reverse Colin in our front yard to get him positioned to drive straight out of the drive on Thursday morning. (I unfortunately was born, reverse adverse.)

We are talking about possibly a 320-point turn and roughly an hour and a half to accomplish the move. Still, it was a win as far as I was concerned. Although I did jump online and order one of these on Afterpay as soon as I was done.

Just to clarify, the trailer dolly, not the bloke or the boat.

Thursday morning rolled on, and getting Colin out of the front gates was bloody terrifying at 4.40 am in the pitch dark. But with Alex’s handy instructions, we got through with no scratches.

Side mirrors attached, we were off, first stop, one hour and 15 minutes later at the Coolongolook Ampol Foodary. Pee stop and coffee pick-up. (Driving Colin out the gate at our place was a bit more traumatic than I anticipated.)

Oh yeah, I nearly forgot, here was our trip mapped out for the day. Forster to Holbrook, roughly 11 hours on the road with a couple of stops.

Second stop, 7.27 am, Raymond Terrace Ampol Foodary, yeah, bit of a trend occurring.

Coffee, bacon and egg roll this time.

Of course, we couldn’t miss elevenses. 10.57 am and we had made it past Sydney and stopped at Pheasants Nest Service Centre, yep, another Ampol Foodary.

Coffee and banana bread this time. I think the 4 am alarm was certainly showing on my face at this stage, that or the Botox missed its mark.

Two and a half hours later, the gastronomy tour continued with our next stop, the Yass Service Centre.

This time we went with a little culture, Maccas!

You might have noticed the scratches all over my arm and face, the result of wrestling with the jungle in the front yard. When attempting to reverse Colin, there was quite a bit in the way that had to come down; the trees fought back, but I still won!

4.00 pm came around, and we rolled into Holbrook Motor Village.

Kerry was our host, and she had a drive-through site for us. I love that, no reversing in front of the crowds.

Set up was an absolute breeze. First one on the road, with power and water connected, awning out and pegged in, 40 minutes. Bloody brilliant!

Now, full disclosure, there was an ulterior motive to my heading us to Holbrook that first night. If you have read any of my previous posts on the Rooksdale Estate, you will be aware that Holbrook used to be called Germanton before the First World War, and it is where my grandfather and his family were living at the turn of the 20th century.

In my last post on Rooksdale, I shared this article about my great-grandparents, Annie and Alex, attending a ball given on the balcony of the Riverina Hotel, a photo of what Annie might have looked like on the night and also a photo of the hotel.

Guess where Alex and I headed for dinner after a quick shower and setting Colin up for the night?

Yes, the Riverina Hotel still stands today. It was $20 Rump Steak night at the hotel, so we ordered and sat out in the beer garden.

This is us in the beer garden. The whole time I sat there, I just kept looking up at the balcony on the front, seeing my great-grandparents looking back down at us from 125 years ago.

We weren’t able to gain access to the balcony, which is only for guests who are staying on site now, but some generous people on Google had shared some recent photos from up there.

After dinner, Alex and I took a stroll down the same streets my family walked over a century ago. This is the church Annie and Alex helped build. It opened in 1901.

The hall to the left is the original church, built in 1870; it is also where my great-grandmother helped to serve afternoon tea to 500 people on the opening day of the new church.

This church is also where my 3x great-grandmother, Christina Strachan, Annie’s grandmother, had her funeral service on the 30th September 1912.

Article 1: Courtesy of Trove, National Library of Australia

The names I’ve highlighted above, after Christina, are Mrs James Ross, her daughter, Jane Strachan. Jane is my great-grandmother, Annie’s aunt and my cousin Alec, who we are about to meet, his great aunt. Mr James Ross is, of course, her husband.

Mr J Cox is Josiah George Cox, brother of my great-grandmother Annie and Alec, my cousin’s granduncle.

I know I have shared this a thousand times before, and I probably will again. But to have an anchor point that you know history was viewed from, from which you can then stand on and see back into the past; it’s like an electric ripple running through you and such an incredible feeling. Here is another of those moments for me.

Back from the time vortex to Colin, who was waiting for us back at the Motor Village.

Our first night in him… yeah, I don’t know how else to type that so it doesn’t sound like an innuendo.

Colin came with fairy lights installed in the bedroom, bonus! It is squeezy for us, but we made it work and bloody hell it was cold, well cold for us, so the squeeze was welcomed.

While Alex got a head start on the sleep, I had to write a short précis on Clive and the little I had discovered about his life. Geoff had asked a couple of days earlier if we would like to speak at the memorial, and it just seemed wrong not to make the effort, for Clive’s sake.

It wasn’t too bad a night in Colin, the bed is only a double, and my feet were hanging over the edge from above the ankles, so a little chilly and uncomfortable. But we were rested and knowing that we didn’t have a huge pack up, we set the alarm for 6.45 am.

After a bit of breakky, overnight oats and a cuppa tea, packing up was an absolute breeze. 30 minutes and we were on the road. A quick stop at the Holbrook Bakery Coffee Shop at the Ampol on the way out of town…

And we were on our way to meet Alec & Guyvonne at Myrtleford in Victoria. Here was our map for the first part of the journey that day.

There was some amazing countryside right the way through from Holbrook to Myrtleford, but particularly on the Myrtleford-Yackandandah Road. Alex managed to get some great shots at my gentle suggestion, of course.

We arrived in Myrtleford about 10.50 am and found this amazing bakery to collect some phenomenal slices for morning tea.

We had nearly two wonderful hours with Alec and his wife, Guyvonne. I mean, how amazingly generous to welcome two strangers into your home. I did actually suggest to Alec when we were organising the catch-up that we meet somewhere other than their home.

Alex and I also discussed in the car on the way there if Alec and Guyvonne had mentioned our planned meeting to any of their family and what that conversation might have sounded like. “What do you mean, you have a distant cousin visiting, whom you met on the internet ten years ago?”

We think that conversation might have taken place. Here is a photo of all of us attending morning tea at Alec and Guyvonne’s that Friday morning.

Yes, Alec’s daughter and her family were in town visiting. What a bonus, meeting them all as well as Alec and Guyvonne. And what a fantastic meeting it was. Once the tea and coffee flowed and the slices were partaken of, we clicked, and the conversation just flowed.

Alec is my 2nd cousin once removed. Alec shared lots of his memories of his time as a young boy when he used to visit Holbrook and stay with relatives. But one amazing piece of information he shared with me was that he was pretty sure that he remembered meeting my great-grandmother, Annie Macvean. Wow!

Just this one bit of information gave me one of those rippling moments. It was as if I reached out and touched Alec’s arm; it would be a link to Annie somehow, nuts I know.

Alec gave me a pile of resources to take with me, which he had collected on the Ross Family and also a copy of a book about Joadja Creek. This was the shale oil town that George Cox, our shared great-grandfather and 2 x great-grandfather, came out to work from Scotland.

It was such a short time we had together, but when we left, both Alex and I said we felt a genuine connection there with Alec and Guyvonne, and they very generously said they felt it too. We made a promise to keep in touch and keep sharing information on the family.

We were back on the road by 1.00 pm. Google Maps had registered that there was a major accident on the M1 somewhere along our route to Melbourne and that there were massive delays. It rerouted us down the Midland Highway on the other side of Benalla.

There was some astonishing scenery on this drive as well, but Alex unfortunately was not receiving any more of my helpful suggestions at this stage of the journey. I think she may have been hangry. Breakfast and the Myrtleford slice were a long way back.

Our next stop, you won’t believe, was not an Ampol but rather this great little general store in Swanpool.

And some more great fortune for us, they had the most amazing hot chicken schnitzels on a Turkish roll. A quality cabin tension-reducing product, just sharing. If you find yourself in Swanpool, check them out.

By this stage, Alex and I had covered roughly 1000kms since driving out our drive the day before, and approximately $780 of diesel had gone into the tank.

Yep, the US/Israeli-Iranian war had pushed petrol prices way up, albeit down from the $3.29 a litre the week before we left, but hovering around the $3.00 mark for the trip. I know this is a first-world problem, considering there were thousands of people already dead in Iran at this time, and not to mention how many people were being displaced and killed in Lebanon by Israeli forces.

I must say Alex and I had shared that we were both experiencing a bit of a mind f_ck at that moment; all that death and destruction was happening while we were just getting to jaunt across the country without a care in the world, except for the price of diesel. What a time to be living in.

Back to the jaunt, we entered Melbourne from the east through Ringwood and then down to Keysborough and then across to Dandenong. We arrived at the Big 4 around 5.45 pm. Kelly was our host this time, and she hooked us up with another drive-through site, bonus!

We forgot to take a photo of Colin set up, but I found our spot on Google Maps. Imagine him up against that wooden fence.

An hour later, we were at the Dandenong RSL club ordering dinner.

Tiled Gallery 5: Courtesy of the Macvean Family Archives

As you can probably imagine, we were both pretty shattered by this stage, not so that we couldn’t enjoy that incredible cheesy garlic bread.

What a whirlwind week and a half. From the time we went to check out new vans, to negotiating on Colin, getting him and then getting him packed, ready to go. And then in the middle of all that, I had already gotten the old Jayco ready and packed, so I had to unpack it and close it up and deliver it out to the caravan yard, as they very generously gave us a $5000 trade in on it. Bonus again!

So we both slept soundly that night when we got back from dinner. Alex and I were both excited for the next day as we were catching up with Xander and Alyssa for breakfast. They flew in that night from Brisbane.

So this seems like a good spot to end this post. I’ve done the usual and just checked, and we are already up to a 16min read time. I still have heaps of great stuff to share with you from the remaining two days of this road trip.

Hopefully, you can join me for Part Two, which will be out very shortly.