Ghost Story From Port Arthur
P. Clifford, SA, Australia
September 2001
I was on a ghost tour with my wife last year, at Port Arthur, an old Penal Colony in southern Tasmania, Australia. We had booked to be on the tour and had a sizeable group, and a tour guide. We also had lanterns to add to the mood of our ghostly tour.
After hearing several scary stories and entering dark, foreboding houses, we were anticipating the next place we were going to. We had just left the Surgeons House and were heading up the road towards the Silent Prison, when one of the guests on tour, asked where were the toilets. The guide explained that it was back near the surgeons home and that we would wait a little while for him at the next stop, but if he was too long that the tour would have to continue, and he was to head straight to the Main Entrance, which is were the tour started from and was a building with a souvenir store, cafe etc.
So when we reached the next stop, the tour guide began to give us the stories and set the scene for our next tour of the Silent prison. Now this was a truly interesting place, prisoners were confined in small rooms and had to wear a hood whenever they left the cell which was for only an hour a day and an extra hour on Sunday for church. Not a word was ever spoken and if they didn't comply they were placed in a cell which basically deprived them of their senses, as it was pitch black and solid brick. So as you can imagine this place was very interesting.
We had been there not that long, but long enough so that the guy would have been able to have rejoined the group. We were laughing and joking that a ghost had taken him, when we saw someone at the end of the path, about 150 meters away that had trees dotted on either side of it. The tour guide called out to "him" as we were in a dark spot an he may not have spotted us. I had my video camera, with which I was able to see in the dark to some degree. And as I zoomed in on him, the figure walked behind a tree and stopped. We were all calling out and had no response. The guide then spoke on her walkie talkie to see if it was another guide, who may be playing a joke on us, but no one was near us. The guide then went down to see what it was and she found no one there!
She then rejoined the group and we then entered the building, looked around the place and then finished our tour. After, when we went back, we found the gentleman, sitting having a coffee and of course the first question was, "So was that you?" He looked at us like we were mad, and said that he had found the toilet and decided to head back to the main building and wait for us there. And our group were suddenly wondering who our "visitor" was?