News Digest

Watery grave: Undertaker paddles coffin to cemetery - past a hospice

In possibly the most inappropriate use of work tools, an undertaker was spotted paddling on an Australian lake using a coffin. Dressed in his tuxedo and wearing a top hat, the undertaker was using the death bed to travel to a cemetery to prepare a grave site. The eerie site on Lake Burley Griffin of the undertaker travelling through the mist didn’t go down well with the residents of the Clare Holland House hospice, which sits on the lake. Those inside thought the sight was “inappropriate an insensitive”.

“It was a figure of a man dressed in a tuxedo and top hat on a stand-up-paddle coffin, complete with flowers, paddling toward us.

Eyewitness Jeanne McLauchlan

Jeanne McLauchlan told the Canberra Times: “In the distance, as we came towards the Carillon we noticed a figure emerge from the thick fog. We asked ‘coffin man, where are you going’? His response was: ‘To Queanbeyan cemetery as I have a 3pm grave site to prepare’.” Rumours indicate that the man behind the stunt is kayaker Tom Simmat, who denied it was a publicity stunt but hasn’t yet revealed a clear motive.