The Coach House where we were to encounter another mischievously bad spirit

The Coach House had no lighting available and is a long large building containing many beautiful and priceless horse drawn coaches. It also holds a marvellous old funeral coach made of beautifully hand crafted glass.

The five of us entered the building - two of us had strong torches - Mark Ferguson followed behind. Within 5 minutes of entering the dark building Mark Ferguson was startled by something unseen which grabbed him from behind. Totally unnerved by this he unwillingly continued to follow us.

Left: Walking through the dark haunted Coach House

As we moved along through the old coaches Mike, Eoghan and myself suddenly had the uncanny experience of feeling that something (not so good) was above our heads. We noticed a large loft above with a ladder leading up to it and Mike Lambert took it upon himself to go to the ladder and start to climb. We moved aside so as to not be underneath the loft and underneath the entity above us and watched as Mike Lambert was overcome by a force pushing him upwards. He allowed himself to be pushed up the stairs and was horrified to find a large open window upstairs with no barriers. He suddenly realized that this entity was pushing him towards the open window and we all shouted for him to come down the stairs immediately!. Mike managed to return down the ladder but was amazed by the pushing force that he was subjected too. Whilst Mike was returning carefully down the ladder Mark Ferguson suddenly cried out and jumped into the middle of our small group, he practically climbed on top of me and you could see that he was quite terrified. He was standing aside from us by himself when suddenly he had felt something lean up against his side and on his shoulder. We were all witness to the fact that nobody else was in contact with him and that his left side was clear of any coaches or other objects in the shed. Mark found this too frightening as he had already been grabbed by the entity again since the first time. Since I wasn't bothered by the entity I was the one who then to walk behind everyone with Mark in front of me so as to stop this entity from annoying him.

Monte Cristo has a history of people being pushed off balconies and down stairs. We are not sure if we encountered the same entity that was responsible for the other accidents within Monte Cristo.

After experiencing all these things we were all cold and decided that since it was approaching midnight that we'd return inside to see what we could find in the haunted Drawing Room.

Only four of us Mark, Eoghan, Mike and myself (Rowena) wanted to investigate the Drawing Room - the others had decided not to leave the comfort and safety of the other guests and members of the Ryan family in the living quarters. So we were alone upstairs in the dark by ourselves. Mark was not too keen to be a part of any more ghostly activities but braved it out anyway. By this time he was truly spooked and had just about had enough.

We decided that the best way to handle the Drawing Room was to enter in the dark and sit quietly for a while and see what would occur. There are many many ghost stories surrounding this room, it's always chilly and there is no explanation for the constant coldness in this room.

Below Right: Mike is astounded by the spirit activity accumulating in the Drawing Room - he is explaining to us that he thinks a man with a cigar is in the chair next to him.

As we sat there Mike Lambert walked around getting the "feel" for the room. He soon was shocked to feel the presence of not only one spirit but many. As he was walking around the room he was pushing his way past spirits of the past who were starting to crowd in. Mark was standing in the doorway and had the distinct feeling of people passing by him and some would brush his face or the front of his shirt as they entered the room. We all noticed that the temperature was rapidly dropping and did not want to turn on a light to check the EMF meter or the thermometer - We were basically waiting for something big to happen. Mike was getting overcome by the amount of activity in the room and the rest of us were dealing with feelings of people brushing up against us and the extreme coldness in the room. You could feel the charge in the air and a heaviness set in, all of a sudden Mike and myself along with Eoghan cried out "Did you smell that!??" - at the exact same time we all could smell cigar smoke. Eoghan could also smell some form of alcoholic drink (rum/whiskey/sherry?) strongly (no others could smell this). Mike felt strongly that a man with a suit and a cane was sitting in one of the corner chairs smoking a cigar. The room was really charged now and we all had the strong feeling that something was either about to materialize or another paranormal event was about to happen. To our dismay two of the AGHS members that were downstairs picked an unfortunate moment to come running up the stairs making loud noises and turning on the upstairs light. The instant they did this the entire thing fell apart. No more spirits crowding the room - the temperature began to climb and our goose bumps faded away. We did not see the event that we felt was about to happen.

Left: Eoghan gets high readings on the EMF meter whilst a small girl spirit is present.

After that great disappointment Mike and Eoghan exclaimed that the Crawley's had entered and they did not want us there, we were all experiencing an uncomfortable feeling (suddenly) of being in the room, we showed respect for they Crawley's by exiting immediately (not that we were scared or anything!). We then wandered about again in the dark and explored the other upstairs rooms for just another 1/2 hour in which Mike suddenly encountered the spirit of a very young girl. She was in the boys room and seemed desperate for Mikes attention. Mike was quite saddened by her longing for company and her loneness, he had to sit down as she was pointing out the dolls in the room to him. She then took to following him around everywhere. Although we took photos I did not manage to capture anything on film (as usual). Eoghan was armed with the EMF meter and was capturing high readings omitting from the bed in the boys room and around Mike. The boys room has been the scene of many strange haunting tales as well (more can be read on the more ghostly encounters page.

After exiting the Boys room and being led by the small child spirit through to the other rooms Mark and myself decided to depart for the night and leave Eoghan and Mike to explore further.

They continued to walk around the house and back sheds until the early hours of the morning and experienced the evil entity in the Caretakers shed along with the green glow above them. They entered the shed wanting to explore the feelings that they got earlier in the night. A dense bad feeling was in there and they both were quite worried about it. Mike wanted to shut the door to see what else he could get from the shed but Eoghan refused, that was when they suddenly noticed a green glow above them on the roof. Nedless to say they both exited the shed VERY RAPIDLY.

They approached the Coach House again but did not even enter it as the entity that was there earlier was not a friendly one and was making it known that he DID NOT want them to enter again. They choose not to even look in the doorway - which I think was a good idea.

The next day dawned and we could do no more ghost hunting as tourists came into the house at 10.00am. After a morning tea and discussion about the events over the weekend we thanked the Ryan family and proceeded to depart.

Right: Eoghan gets high readings on the EMF meter from the bed in the boys room.

Eoghan Arnold was the only one who had to stay behind to catch a train later on in the day. He had the fortunate experience of virtually having the entire place to himself at one stage. He also encountered the small girl spirit that resided upstairs. She followed him around holding his hand, he described her as a small girl of about 5/6 years old, she had a black pinafore type outfit with a white blouse/overcoat. She also had long black curls. She stayed with him until they reached the balcony - she walked to the corner where the Chapel Room was and then suddenly let go of his hand and ran off back into the house. Eoghan was lucky to experience this small child spirit.

This is the only ghost I managed to capture on film in Monte Cristo
Taken in the servants quarters out the back this ghost makes a weird sound and wiggles when you clap your hands - a handy tool to scare the living daylights out of unaware tourists!

Conclusions: