UP ON Blackhill Road in Gisborne South in rural Victoria, where Irish-born Gillian ''Jill'' Meagher was found dead almost a fortnight ago, the site of her shallow grave is now covered with flowers and mementoes.
They look like staying for some time. There is even local talk of a permanent memorial, a tree perhaps.
On the farm fence near where her body was buried are handmade posters calling for the reintroduction of the death penalty.
In Brunswick's Sydney Road, meanwhile, the flowers left outside the Duchess Bridal Boutique - where the 29-year-old ABC employee was last captured in chilling CCTV footage - have gone, packed up by council workers this week and taken to the family's funeral director in North Melbourne.
Sydney Road was where 30,000 people marched last weekend, for Ms Meagher and for young women in Melbourne everywhere, as a show of strength. That was big and bold. Her funeral yesterday was small and private, by invitation only, but no less bold. In true Irish style it was full of laughs and a joyous longing for the life she led rather than the darkness in which she died.
In a touching moment afterwards, her father, George McKeon, who was inconsolable and wailing during his eulogy at a tiny chapel inside Fawkner Cemetery, waved lovingly at the 29 white doves released as a tribute to his daughter's free spirit.
The doves flew up and up, then dived and circled back towards Mr McKeon and the gathering outside the chapel. They then flew west in formation, away from him, towards Perth where he lives.
The hug he then locked into with Jill's husband, Tom Meagher, seemed endless and unable to be tighter.
There was dancing at the funeral. Those of us outside couldn't see it, but we could hear it.
Everyone who attended was given a bracelet and white ribbon - for a United Nations initiative to stop violence against women.
