Top 11 Spookiest Places of Interest - New South Wales
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New South Wales is Australia's oldest state as well as being home not just home to spectacular natural attractions, famous iconic points of interest and multicultural suburbs. It is also home to unnerving stories of the bygone days as well as spooky places that are a must-visit this Halloween!
From cobbled streets of The Rocks to the Monte Cristo Homestead, to the dark silent chambers of Jenolan Caves. The below has it all!
1. The Rocks, Sydney
Cobbled laneways, sandstone terraces, convict cottages, and some of the country's oldest pubs line the streets of this historic precinct. The Rocks are filled with history, from being home to a settlement of convicts, soldiers, sailors, and street gangs.
The Rocks Ghost Tours offer eerie evening explorations of the area as you will be transported back to this convict colony with local folklore, ghostly tales and haunted sites. You will also uncover the region's fascinating and sinister past.
If you want a furthermore haunting experience, a weekend stay at the Russell Hotel, is steeped in history, and also believed to be haunted by the spirit of a sailor!
2. Monto Cristo Homestead, Junee
This Homestead is located near Wagga Wagga and holds a reputation as Australia's most haunted house. It bears a dark history and is said to be haunted by at least ten ghostly entities who all met untimely ends.
Current owner, Olive Ryan, runs ghost tours through the mansion and generously shares the homestead's fascinating and spooky past with anyone game enough to listen.
The homestead offers six guest rooms and can be booked via email.
Click here for the website.
3. Cape St George Lighthouse
This doomed Lighthouse is home to misery, tragedy and controversy. It is one of the most ill-fated lighthouses ever to be built in New South Wales!
With spectacular and tranquil views surrounding the Lighthouse, it is hard to believe this is a haunted place of interest.
Completed in 1860, the Lighthouse had a few light-keepers that lived here, and each one struck with tragic events.
Tragic events included children of the keepers suffering from a terminal illness. One father washed away from the rocks and taken by sharks as his son watched in horror, and a nine-year-old son of one of the light-keepers kicked in the head by a horse and died on the way to the hospital.
The most disturbing tragic event was when one of the principal light keeper's daughter tripped over while carrying a loaded firearm, the gun discharged accidentally striking her friend (the assistant light keeper's daughter) in the back of her skull, killing her instantly.
Other tragedies included twenty-three shipwrecks in the vicinity near the Lighthouse.
Click here for the website.
4. Maitland Gaol, East Maitland
Located in the Hunter region, this gaol is packed with intriguing history as it was a maximum-security prison that housed some of Australia's most hardened and notorious criminals. The Gaol operated for 150 years and was closed in 1998. Today, it one of New South Wales' heritage-listed sites.
There tours available to venture inside which remains genuine to the day it closed down. There are self-guided audio tours or themed guided tours available. Night tours offer a sleepover in the cells but be warned, this tour is not for the faint-hearted.
Click here for the website.
5. Q Station, Manly
Located at the spectacular North Head near Manly, within 30 acres of Sydney Harbour National Park, the Q Station has a dark past entrenched in the isolation, suffering and disease when it was operated as a quarantine post. Today, the site offers visitors combinations of beautiful heritage sites, stylish accommodation, and some of the city's most breathtaking views.
There a range of history, educational, ghost and paranormal tours available, as well as overnight stays in the historic cottages.
According to the Q Station's medium, there are least fifty spirits wandering the hospital, dining halls, show block, and morgue, where an ominous mannequin lies under a white sheet to awaken the imagination.
Click here for the website.
6. Jenolan Caves, Blue Mountains
Situated in the Blue Mountains, Jenolan Caves are Australia's most impressive limestone caves as well as being one of the largest cave systems in the world. There are 11 caves that are opened to the public. Tours include exploring dark chambers, underground rivers, and awe-inspiring cave formations.
The local Gundungurra people name Jenolan as 'Binoomea' which means 'the dark place' and a number of ghostly tales have emerged over the years most connected to James Wiburd- he loved the place so much, that he chose to never leave, lingering permanently to keep an eye on things.
Click here for the website.
7. Picton
This small quaint town on the south-west of Sydney is reputedly Australia's most haunted town. It was initially known as Stonequarry and founded in 1821. It is home to the infamous Redbank Range Railway Tunnel.
The tunnel is packed with tragedy and history and continues to haunt the town to this day.
A resident of Picton, Emily Bollard, is believed to haunt the tunnels to this day after her tragic death in 1916. She was struck by a train and killed. Whether her death was a planned suicide or a tragic accident; it remains a mystery. Since that night, Emily has "appeared" to many residents deep within the stone walls of the tunnel.
Ghostly children, strange lights and sudden drops of temperature also have been reported in the tunnel.
The tunnel is not the only haunted site in Picton. The old maternity hospital supposedly hides the shadowy figure of a cranky old matron, and the ghostly sounds of crying babies can be heard within the halls of the historic building. Some have even reported waking up to invisible hands, choking them in the middle of the night.
The Wollondilly Shire Council is reportedly haunted by three separates ghosts- a small boy, a man dressed in a hat and suit and the sounds of a little girl.
The Imperial Hotel plays unplugged Jukeboxes, and a presence follows staff around at night, and the Stonequarry Creeky (where many have drowned) is haunted by the sounds of splashing and swimming water.
Ghost tours used to run regularly but were forced to shut down by the local council.
Click here for the website.
8. Darlinghurst Gaol
In 1995, this imposing sandstone prison was transformed into the National Art School, however, ghosts of 75 people who were executed at its gallows never left. Hangings were conducted until 1908 and where public affairs before 1852. There were dozens more murders and suicides, making Darlinghurst Gaol home to restless phantoms that are still believed to spook the site.
Historic Tours are conducted at the Goal, that is dubbed as 'Starvinghurst' for its paltry rations and grisly conditions.
Click here for the website.
9. Cockatoo Island
Being one of Sydney's most iconic colonial sites, it is also one of the most haunted, riddles with apparitions and mystifying disappearances.
This UNESCO World Heritage Site is known for its association with convict transportation back in the 18th & 19th centuries. It served as a colonial prison, a dockyard and a reformatory school for misbehaving girls, leading to decades of appalling mistreatment and plenty of botched escapes.
There are Island Night Tours, revealing the secrets, scandals, and skeletons that haunt Sydney Harbour's largest island.
Click here for the website.
10. Wakehurst Parkway
This notorious stretch of road on Sydney's Northern Beaches is infamous for its supernatural occurrences it inflicts on terrified drivers en route from Seaforth to Narrabeen, particularly around the historic body dumping site Deep Creek Reserve. Reports have been made where car lock themselves, windscreen wipers go crazy, and ghostly apparitions of white women and green men spring up in rearview mirrors.
The road is also known for many fatal crashes. Many said to have been caused by a young girl by the name of 'Kelly', who appears in people's motor vehicles as they drive along the dark road after midnight. If she is not informed that her presence is unwanted, she will make the car veer off the road and crash.
11. Central Station
It is hard to believe that Sydney's biggest Train Station is haunted. It is said to have two paranormal platforms- namely numbers 26 and 27.
The platforms are built on the site of the Old Devonshire Street Cemetery, with bodies exhumed when construction began on the train tunnels.
The ghostly areas are usually closed to the public, however, they are opened occasionally for night time ghost time tours.
Legend has it if you stay long enough on the haunted platforms you can hear the cries of the dead in the wind as well as ghostly sounds of children playing.
Click here for the website.
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207445 - 2023-06-16 05:59:26