Just like to share some strange experiences that my travel
mate and I had while visiting Australia last year around
July.
This is a very long and detailed write up, so please
bear with me, as I really want the reader to capture the
feelings of the experiences.
We visited 3 places, which were listed as haunted locations in Castle of Spirits’ most
haunted, one on purpose and the other two unintentionally.
I will talk about the Quarantine Station at North Head
first.
We had wanted to do a night tour after seeing it in
Scream Test. Being unable to get any travel arrangements
during the night, we decided to go for a heritage tour of
the site during the day, my travel mate was drawn to the
history of the place you see. The visit was largely an
uneventful one, but when we reached the Asiatic quarters
the situation became spooky. My travel mate claimed
that as she moved to leave the hall where they screened the
film on the station (Those who have visited the station
might be more familiar), the door closed by itself as
thought trying to stop our exit. She swore that there had
been no wind at that moment.
The shower block gave us
strange feelings of great fear, confusion, sorrow and
anguish. To this day, my travel mate would not look at a
picture that she took of the room with the 2 big circle
doors where the migrants’ personal belongings were
treated.
There were times when I blinked and saw, for
short flash, a graveyard where an open field is now and in
the shower room, a very thin person sitting in one of the
shower cubicles. Our imagination? Perhaps. I felt that
we had tuned our senses too high and had neglected to
detect the small signs during that visit. But I had a
strong feeling of unhappiness that many of the Asians
were probably not given the correct death rites they might
have wanted. We also felt that the Asians might have
tried to make themselves felt specifically to us as we were
the only Asians in the group.
Our visit to the Hyde Park Barracks was perhaps the most
frightening of all. We had visited the place around 3 in
the afternoon. The third floor of the main building made
me feel sick on reaching it. Perhaps it was psychological
as the carpet strangely stopped at the steps leading to the
third floor leaving only wooden floorboards. As I was
about to enter the sleeping quarters where they had the
hammocks, I thought I glanced and for a short moment saw a
lot of people in the room. I did not dare to enter, but my
travel mate entered on her own. I walked in the passageway
to meet her on the other side of the room. As she reached
the middle of the room and I the middle of the passageway,
I swore I felt someone blow down my neck and she heard
someone hiss into her ear. We did not tell each other
about our experiences until later as we did not want to
spook each other.
Without saying much to each other, we
went to the second floor archeology room where we looked at
some of the odds and ends found during the excavation. As
we were at the far end of the room, the door was on the
other side, we heard the sound of footsteps moving towards
us. They sounded brisk, angry and demanding, as though
asking the reason for our presence. We snapped our heads
in the direction of the sound and it stopped immediately.
I looked at my travel mate and she shrugged her shoulders
trying to convince herself that it was our imagination.
But as we turned back to the exhibits, the footsteps
started again! We did not need more indications to
conclude that were not really welcomed there!
We made a
quick exit while trying not to run and make a fool of
ourselves.
On the first floor, my travel mate felt an
uncontrollable urge to cry for no reason. In the
courthouse, my travel mate saw out of the corner of her
eyes the swish of a black skirt with white lace trimmings
near the judge’s table. To round up the story of the Hyde
Park Barracks, we went back to our hotel room to retire for
the night. My travel mate complained about something
knocking on the window every time she dropped off to
sleep. It kept her awake until she had to place a prayer
book on the bedside table before it stopped.
Just a note that during the visit to the Barracks, we were quite sure
that we were the only ones in the exhibition area, save for
a Caucasian lady on the first floor.
We also visited Old Melbourne Gaol during our trip. Thanks
to Ned Kelly, they were having an exhibition on his life, I
did not really feel anything strange in the place as there
was a lot of people moving around. My travel mate however
could smell many strange smells, worst of all was in the
room next to the hanging platform. She had entered one of
the cells, which had the death mask of an aboriginal man,
when she saw out of the corner of her eye a tall dark
figure standing at the door of the cell. It was so tall
that it almost touched the top of the doorway. Thinking
that someone wanted to come in, she stepped deeper into the
cell to make some space for the other visitor, but nobody
came in and the figure had vanished. Which brings up the
photo that Lisa took of one of the cells in your site at
http://www.castleofspirits.com/melbgaolph.html, I wonder if
you guys remember which cell you took the picture from?
Perhaps not, as the picture was in 2001.
The spirits of the Gaol seemed to have followed us back to the hotel as
the air-conditioner, which had refused to be switched on
for the first few nights of our stay at Melbourne came on
by itself and refused to be switched off. We spent a
sleepless night huddled together half frozen to death. The
next morning my travel mate complained of many hands
running up and down her back. Much to my embarrassment,
she had to say “ Can you please stop touching me!” in a
loud voice before the hands stopped. I was left to fend
with the eyes of the other hotel guests who turned to look
accusingly at me, thinking I was trying to be FUNNY with
her...
To wrap up, I only discovered that the Hyde Park Barracks
and the Old Melbourne Gaol were listed as Australia’s most
haunted after I returned from my trip to Australia. We
both now believe that what we saw might well have been
ghosts.
I have some other stories that I will leave until later as
it will need me to explain in-depth the Chinese perceptions
of death and dying. Until then , thanks for reading. Also
thanks to Castle of Spirits for doing such a great job with
the website.
Contact me here: grickenaus@yahoo.com
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