Simon Speight, the grandson of Dr Geoffrey Orbell, travelled with his partner Edward Tarau from Tāmaki-Makaurau to Invercargill last month to pay their respects to the prominent Southland figure.
Dr Geoffrey Orbell was elected to the Invercargill City Council in 1941 and he was known in the South Island for his work as an eye, nose, ear and throat specialist.
He also rediscovered the once believed extinct native bird, the takahē, in Fiordland.
However, the visit to St John’s Cemetery in Waikiwi became bittersweet, due to the frustration in locating his grave.
Mr Speight said he spent nearly an hour trying to find his grandfather’s headstone, as there were no signs or maps.
"There were no instructions on how to locate your loved one’s grave.
"It was supposed to be a day of healing.
"After all these years I could finally pay homage to him but this experience became frustrating because there was no information at the cemetery on how to find his grave."
He spent about 45 minutes on his mobile phone looking for information and trying to understand where his grandfather was buried.
However, Mr Speight felt there was a disconnection between what was written on the Invercargill City Council website and the pegs placed at the cemetery.
"There are block numbers on the Invercargill City Council website which do not match with what is written on the pegs in the cemetery.
"It should not have been so hard to find his grave. A map in the cemetery would have prevented a very stressful search."
The couple also found the grave search process compounded as they could not easily locate a water source at the entrance of St John’s Cemetery.
Mr Tarau said as a Maori, he practised whakanoa which was a spiritually clearing of a space.
"It is acknowledging of what is tapu, what is sacred. We use water to cleanse ourselves, making the space right before we enter and exit an urupā.
"I couldn’t enter the cemetery without first finding a water source to do my practice and ended up using liquid from a small bottle that I had on me."
After the incident, he felt the cemetery "was not an inclusive space".
Approached for comment, an Invercargill City Council spokeswoman said there were 3094 people buried at St John’s and there were no plans to install signage which would list the names of those buried.
"This information could be found online via council’s cemetery search tool."
The spokeswoman also said there was a tap at the cemetery which could be found just off to the left-hand side of the main entrance.
