Tripping in spooky spaces
Written by Karen Sivijs
Did you sit around the campfire with a torch under your chin re-telling urban myths when you were a kid, scream at the TV to “Get out of the house” when watching “When a Stranger Calls” for the zillionth time (cult horror classic from 1979, not the 2006 remake) and are you weirdly drawn to reading headstones at ancient cemetery’s? Yep, you, that’s who I’m talking to!
If pushing an upturned glass around a home-made Ouija board, or writing “Redrum” on the bathroom mirror to scare your significant other is your idea of fun (mirror steams up, writing revealed, the Shining…it just isn’t funny if I have to explain it), then spooky tourism is for you!
There’s a plethora of eerie sites in Australia where you might hang around an antiquated hall hoping for an apparition to appear, or stay the night in haunted hotel rooms where murders have occurred. Here are some of our faves:
Q Station – New South Wales
Sprawled across the hillside on the edge of Sydney Harbour, Q Station (the Q stands for Quarantine), where from the 1830’s until 1984, migrant ships arriving in Sydney with suspected contagious disease stopped inside North Head and offloaded passengers and crew into quarantine to protect local residents.
Visitors to Q Station have experienced the sensation of hands wrapping around the throat, of being pushed down from the chest and of being submerged underwater – paranormal investigators believe an unknown woman was attacked and murdered in the Gravediggers cottage, drowned in the bath.
Q Station provides accommodation, Ghost Tours and weirdly enough, you can get married there…. shotgun not staying in the Gravediggers cottage on the wedding night!
Beechworth Asylum – Victoria
Located in the town of Beechworth, just a few hours from Melbourne lies the Beechworth Lunatic Asylum, later known as the Mayday Hills Mental Hospital (do I need to point out here that Mayday is a call for help?) With the capacity for 1200 patients when full and over 3000 patient deaths recorded in its 128-year history, the site is a stomping ground for unsettled spirits.
Catch a glimpse of Matron Sharpe floating down the granite staircase, or maybe feel the sensation of Tommy Kennedy, a kitchen hand who actually died in the kitchen, tugging at your clothes or poking you in the ribs.
A young girl may appear in the Reaction Hall and she approaches women, desperately trying to communicate with them. The Grevillia wing, where unspeakable torture occurred in the name of medical science (read: straightjackets, shackles and electro shock therapy) now closed and derelict, has a resident doctor who wanders the corridors at night and ghost gardener Arthur may be seen, wearing his coveted green jacket.
For cool chills cascading through rooms, horrid smells of rotting flesh and purportedly, much paranormal activity, Beechworth has the macabre reputation of one of the most haunted sites in Australia – spook hunters – get there!
Woodman Point Quarantine Station – Western Australia
Maybe WA’s best kept secret, Woodman Point Quarantine Station is not just known for its history, it’s one of the most haunted places in the state – a ghost hunters dream for paranormal activity.
Built in 1886 to isolate and treat victims of the Bubonic Plague and in later years, smallpox, tuberculosis, leprosy and the Spanish flu, it is supposedly possessed by the ghosts of children who died from the black death.
The Spanish flu arrived on WA shores shortly after the end of WWI, on a ship called the Boonah, carrying soldiers from South Africa, and it’s rumoured that the 27 soldiers and 4 nurses that died of the infection in 1918 still haunt the building today.
Local Medium, Rebecca Millman has experienced the presence of a young boy called Robert, and has heard the rhyme “ring-a-ring-a-rosie” (an old London nursery rhyme that depicts death from the plague – such fun times those!), so she assumes he died of the black death.
There is almost guaranteed paranormal activity here, whether it’s something turning up in someone’s photo, gross smells, unexplained whistling, groans and physical touch in the shower block (cool, but creepy.)
For information on crafting a spooky tour to suit your kind of crazy, contact us now.
