Favourite Haunts :: A Sea of Ghosts on Kangaroo Island (Karta)

Land of the Dead: Kangaroo Island, South Australia
© Ghost & Girl

"Ngurunderi’s final act on earth was to leave instructions for his people, that after death, they should follow his steps to the western end of Kangaroo Island.  There he leapt from a pile of rocks into the sea, where he drowned, but his cleansed spirit rose to the sky, to await the arrival of his descendants."

~ Ngurunderi's Final Action, Ngarrindjeri Dreaming

 

 

South Australia's Kangaroo Island lies 112km south-west of the city of Adelaide, and is Australia's third largest island. Today it is inhabited by around 4000 people, most of whom live on the east coast of the island, closest to the mainland. Over half the island is national parks and protected wilderness areas, and the largest of these are found on the island's western end.

 

The island has been inhabited by Europeans since the early 19th Century. It was sealers, escaped convicts, and awol sailors who first took up casual residency on the island. These were rough, uncouth men, infamous for kidnapping Aboriginal women from Tasmania and the South Australian mainland, to keep as slaves. A number of these women died in their attempts to cross the unforgiving waters surrounding the island to return to their people. Only one woman is known to have survived the journey.

 

When the island was first occupied by Europeans, they found it uninhabited by Aborigines. However, the presence of Indigenous Australians on the island is undisputed: There is archaeological evidence that suggests Aboriginal people occupied the island as recently as 2000 years ago, but their history on the island stretches back at least 16,000 years. Why the indigenous population chose to leave the island remains a mystery; however, the Aboriginal groups on the mainland refer to Kangaroo Island as "Karta", which means "Land of the Dead", the stories of which is reflected in their Dreaming.

 

For example, the Ngarrindjeri people regard the island as the place to which the spirit travels after death, where it meets with the ancestral spirits for the final journey into heaven. The Ramindjeri also refer to the island as being the "gateway to star heaven in the Milky Way". It is also said that the ghost of a Ramindjeri woman makes her presence known by appearing to people on the island in the form of a small, native bird.

 

Weir's Cove, Cape du Couedic, Kangaroo Island
© Ghost & Girl

The island was settled by the British as part of the Colony of South Australia, with the first ship of free settlers arriving at Reeves Point on 27 July 1836. However, a shortage of fresh water and suitable materials for building saw the settlement moved to the mainland less than four years later.

 

The waters surrounding Kangaroo Island are notoriously treacherous. The island has four lighthouses, all still in operation: Cape Willoughby (1852), Cape Borda (1858), Cape du Couedic (1906), and Cape St Albans (1908). Destructive cliffs make up most of the island's coastline, and the lighthouses have been integral to the safe passage of ships in and around the island for more than 160 years.

 

Kangaroo Island is infamous for its shipwrecks, with the west coast of the island being particularly unforgiving. One tragedy is that of the Loch Vennachar, which sailed into cliffs off remote West Bay in 1905. All 27 crew on board perished, and only the remains of one sailor was eventually washed ashore, later buried in the silver-grey sand-dunes of the bay.

 

The island presented a difficult, and sometimes tragic way of life for its inhabitants, too. The island's lighthouse keepers and their families were completely isolated, not just from the mainland, but for a long time there were no roads connecting the lighthouses to the rest of the island. At Cape Borda and Cape du Couedic, supplies were brought in by ship and hauled up the cliff-edge at Harvey's Return and Weir's Cove respectively. Sailors, light-keeper's and their family members make up the island's early dead, the magnitude of which can been seen in cemeteries like that found at Harvey's Return near Cape Borda.

 

Cottages at Cape du Couedic, Kangaroo Island
© Ghost & Girl

If you believe the reports, it seems that some of these dead continue to wander their island home. The old light-keeper's cottages at Cape Borda are now rented out to visitors as self-contained accommodation, and many who stay report ghostly happenings, which includes the apparition of a small girl in and around the cottages themselves.

 

The visitor books at Cape du Couedic report similar ghostly activity in and around the old cottages. An "old man" is frequently reported, as are countless tales of strange, unexplained sounds and lights coming from within the cottages, including those that should be empty, and the unshakable, eerie sensation that one is never quite alone, no matter where on the Cape one finds themselves.

 

It was far too easy for me to relate to this unfathomable sensation of being watched during my own stay at Cape du Couedic. The three charming light-keeper's cottages are set in behind a rise that provides suitable protection from the winds that roar in over the cape, with the lighthouse a short stroll to the top. Renting one of the assistant keeper's cottages in the off-season meant that we were the only two people for miles, surrounded by windblown scrubland on one side, and the brutal mass of the Southern Ocean on the other.

 

We arrived at the Cape just on sunset. The blinds on the cottage windows were all drawn, and the place appeared to be completely uninhabited - by the living, at least. But from the moment we stepped out of our car and made our way to the cottage entrance, it became undeniable that our first impression of the cape as uninhabited wasn't entirely accurate.

 

I was completely restless the entire first evening of our stay. Inside the cottage, it felt as though we were constantly watched. I know it sounds terribly cliché, but this sensation was so intense that it made the hairs on the back of my neck remain permanently raised, as if something was hovering just behind me, deliberately staying out of sight. Whenever I looked up, or turned around, or walked out of one room and into another, I could not escape the feeling that at any moment I would find a stranger staring at me from within the shadows.

 

Then on the first night, not long after I had dozed off, I was woken suddenly by what I thought was someone whispering in my ear: "My name is John..."

 

I live in an old, stone house, and am therefore familiar with the sounds that old, stone houses make in the night: The pop and crack of the roof and floorboards as the house cools; the knocking of the stones and the rattle of sash windows and doors as it shifts and settles; the howl of the wind as it makes it way down the chimneys. And for the first two nights at Cape du Couedic, the wind howled and the sea crashed in a way that only the Southern Ocean is capable of, and all the noises we heard during those two nights we could confidently say were nothing more than the normal sounds that an old stone cottage makes during nights of wild weather.

 

On the third night, though, we were blessed with perfect calm. The eerie sensation of being watched and followed had abated, and we found ourselves quite comfortable within the walls of the old assistant keeper's cottage. It made for an undisturbed sleep.

 

Remarkable Rocks, Kangaroo Island
© Ghost & Girl

However, in the early hours of that last morning, before the sun had even peaked above the horizon, I woke from my slumber, unmoving, but fully awake and alert. Outside it was perfectly still, not even the sound of a bird could be heard. And then, just as it had been reported countless times in the visitor books, there came the sound of movement from the other end of the corridor outside the bedroom: A shuffling, thumping and tapping, the distinct sounds of someone pulling on boots, followed by footsteps proceeding down the hallway to the front door, first becoming louder at their approach, before gently fading away.

 

The tales of the ghosts of Cape du Couedic do not reveal, nor even hazard a guess at the identity of the spirit whose footsteps are so regularly heard making their way down the hallway in the cottage. I like to think that it is one of the old assistant light-keepers making his early-morning check of the lighthouse.

 

Whilst it's easy to make assumptions, it's more difficult to confirm if any of the assistant light-keeper's stationed at Cape du Couedic, and resident of the same cottage, were actually named John. It'd be a neat coincidence if there was, though.

 

 

Want to know more about Kangaroo Island (Karta)? Try these links:

Kangaroo Island: A Rich History

Flinders Ranges Research: Kangaroo Island

Aborigines on Kangaroo Island

Nunkuwarrin Yunti: Ngurunderi

Wulde Waiirri: Kangaroo Island Aboriginal Cultural Tours

Sarah  

[Find out more about your hosts here]

Making the Paranormal Normal :: Halloween as a Ritual of Inversion - An Australian Perspective

© Ghost & Girl

"For a while, we pull these fearful and painful realities into a relatively contained and public context. We share them with our children. We create a special and safe moment during which danger and death, skeletons and strangers can safely be part of our existence...Halloween reverses the usual order of many things in many ways". ~ Ken C. Erikson, Anthropologist

 

 

Here's the deal: I have never celebrated or participated in Halloween. Ever. I can muse about ghosts, and theorise about life after death, but Halloween presents me with a difficulty: How does one write about something one has no experience of?

 

You see, in southern Australia (where I have lived all my life), October is spring. Here the days are getting longer and warmer. It hasn't rained solidly in at least two months. The ground is dry, the grass is beginning to crunch underfoot, and the plants are finishing their spring bloom in preparation for summer shut-down.

 

October 31 in Australia bears no relevance to the ancient Celtic calendar that brought about Samhain, which lead to All Hallow's Eve and, in time, Halloween. In Australia, the first day of November marks the beginning of summer: Beltane. If Australians wanted to be serious about Halloween and keep in line with its history and traditions, then the reality is that it would need to be celebrated not in October, as it is in the Northern Hemisphere, but on the Southern Hemisphere's Samhain, which falls on April 30.

 

There is limited information as to why Australia, despite its shared cultural and religious history with Europe and the Americas, never adopted the tradition of Halloween. There are suggestions, however, that the seasonal differences may have played a major part, or perhaps the religious influences at the time of settlement had something to do with it as well. It might even be that the arduous life of a settler (whether a free one or not) simply couldn't accommodate the traditions of the Old Country.

 

However, whatever the reasons for its initial absence from the Australian calendar - an absence that existed for more than two hundred years, I might add - in recent times, Halloween has been creeping its way into our lives.

 

Or, at least, into our supermarkets and department stores.

 

The arrival of Halloween to Australian shores is the result of clever marketing techniques from the big-brand, American-owned companies that influence all our purchasing habits. But despite this, the introduction of Halloween might be just what Australia needs.

 

In the past decade or so, Halloween has become a thing in Australia. People throw costume parties and children go trick-or-treating in their neighbourhoods. I was surprised to learn during my own investigations (read: intense questioning of local residents), that even in a small town situated on the edge of the desert, Halloween has been the thing to do for the past fifteen years. And not only that, but with each passing year it gets bigger and better, with more people becoming involved.

 

But don't think for a minute that this is your typical, Northern Hemisphere Halloween event. There's no history behind the existence of Halloween in Australia. It's only cultural influence is American pop-culture.

 

So, why then do we do it, if we have no seasonal, cultural or historical ties to the tradition?

 

I asked this question of a parent whose two teenage daughters have dressed-up and gone trick-or-treating for the past ten years. Her response was this:

 

"You'd think it'd be about the candy, but it's not. It's about the make-believe, about being a kid. It's the experience of it that has them wanting to do it again, year in and year out, no matter how old they get".

 

When I first decided that I would write this post, I wanted to write about Halloween as a ritual of inversion. A ritual of inversion (or reversal, as it is sometimes referred) is an event that permits people to participate in something that goes against the accepted norms of one's society.

 

Halloween is the time of year when it is okay, in fact acceptable for people to dabble in danger and death. It's the time when ghost stories are encouraged rather than scoffed at; when monsters and strange events become the topic of conversation; when one can dress up as a mythical creature without ridicule; and when all the things that make up the paranormal become the normal. All those things we'd rather not think about, let alone discuss or participate in at any other time of the year, become accepted practice during Halloween.

 

This is what makes Halloween a ritual of inversion, and perhaps it is the reason why Australians seem willing to adopt it and make it a part of their annual calendar. There was nothing like it before. When I was growing up, one didn't talk about death, or ghosts, or monsters. It was either taboo, or didn't exist. Now children make up songs about ghosts on their way to school in the morning, and choose out costumes for trick-or-treating, and attempt to scare each other silly with the scariest story they can come up with. 

 

And since it's Halloween, that's perfectly okay.

 

From an Australian perspective, Halloween presents one with the perfect excuse to become involved in the paranormal. Australia needs Halloween, simply because it is a ritual of inversion. It's cultural influences, and even its seasonal irrelevance seem unimportant in light of the fact that Halloween acts as a social pressure-release valve.

 

That is, Halloween makes it okay to talk about and participate in those things that might otherwise raise eyebrows; to celebrate not only the make-believe, but shared experience with death - and what comes after it.

 

Sarah  

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The Ghosts of Sydney's Quarantine Station :: A Personal Experience

 



Sydney's Quarantine Station
© Ghost & Girl



"Having endured the long voyage to Australia in the hope of starting a new life, immigrants could find themselves detained in quarantine and in some cases seriously ill. Separated from healthy family members and prohibited from any contact, those in quarantine had no way of knowing whether they would see their loved ones again. Some children left the Quarantine Station as orphans, and women as widows, alone in a strange country with no means of support." - From Quarantine to Q Station: Honouring the Past, Securing the Future by Jennifer Cornwall & Simon McArthur

 

 

Sydney's Quarantine Station is located in North Head, Manly, in the state of New South Wales on the east coast of Australia. Between 1830 and 1984, all vessels suspected of carrying sick passengers were sent straight to North Head to be quarantined. After an average of forty days, most passengers would be released into society.

 

The site of Sydney's Quarantine Station was chosen for three main reasons:

 

1. It was the first safe anchorage point within the Heads;

2. It was completely isolated, well away from the main settlement of Sydney; and

3. The site had its own natural spring, which ensured long-term habitation.

 

Quarantine Station's Second Class Precinct
© Ghost & Girl

Today the sights, sounds and smells of the sick and quarantined are all but an echo, with the site (now called Q Station) offering corporate, educational and historical services to the public, with fine dining and serviced accommodation. The Station also offers a variety of ghost tours. As a (once local) resident of the Sydney area, I have had the privilege of visiting (and staying at) the site on a number of occasions.  

 

There are ghosts at Quarantine Station, make no mistake. Many ghosts, in fact, some of whom have made themselves known to me during my stays there. I thought I would share with you some of my most memorable encounters:



(i) A significant experience happened on a recent tour of the Station that I undertook with my mother. The tour began down by the dock in the Wharf Precinct, after which it proceeded towards a small building located by the Luggage Fumigation. The guide asked us to split into two groups and enter one of two rooms, then she closed the doors. Although the darkness consumed us in the room, I was aware of being "rushed at" by an entity that I felt was decidedly male. Whilst I couldn't see him, I was able to sense him as he got up in my face. I got the distinct impression that he wasn't happy about the fact that I knew he was there. It was an awful experience. I felt assaulted. It resulted in my bursting into tears!

 

Gravedigger's Cottage, Quarantine Station
© Ghost & Girl

(ii) During an overnight stay on site in the Second Class Precinct, my mother and I both experienced being touched on the face during the night in our bedroom. The light in the room was also mysteriously turned on at one point, and we could "feel" someone walking around in the early hours of the morning.

 

(iii) On a separate occasion, but also whilst staying overnight in the Second Class Precinct, I awoke during the night to find a grey cat on the bed, which promptly vanished before my eyes. The raucous woke my sleeping companion. 

 



(iv) During a ghost tour at the Station, I experienced the smell of potatoes as we walked towards the second class dining facilities. I wasn't the only one, as a handful of other tour attendees also picked up on the smell, but there were others who couldn't smell anything at all. The tour guide then proceeded to reveal to the group that the smell of potatoes is often picked up by members of tour groups. This event sticks out in my mind due to the fact that at the time, the Quarantine Station did not have a restaurant or accommodation, so there was no obvious explanation for the smell. As the Station is quite isolated, there is little opportunity for contamination from other sites.

 

(v) Whilst passing the Gravedigger's Cottage during another tour, the guide was relaying the history of the cottage and its most infamous resident, when the windows to the cottage were suddenly opened and closed quite forcibly by someone (or something) inside. This was well before the cottage became accessible to the public, and the group initially assumed it was some kind of prank. However, when the perplexed guide contacted security to come and investigate, it turned out that the building was completely locked, and no one could possibly have been inside. This revelation rattled all of us, but none more than the guide herself.



Quarantine Station's notorious Shower Block.
© Ghost & Girl

I seem to be sensitive to this type of activity. When in a location I am able to pick up on energies and can sense the presence of spirit, although I find that spirits do not wish to communicate with me in a more direct manner, or perhaps I am not yet able to communicate with them in a conversational way. However, these experiences and encounters, and the intensity of them seems to depend on environmental factors, particularly the weather. On those occasions where I have experienced quite a lot of activity, such as shadow people and one-on-one interaction, it has been stormy and wet. In these instances, the presence of thunderstorms has left the atmosphere feeling almost "charged", delivering some unexpected events as a result.

 

The types and intensity of paranormal experiences at Quarantine Station seem to vary; however, Shadow People are common, as is the sight of an elderly Chinese gentleman in and around the Asiatic Quarters, or the hand of a little girl that will tug (or hold onto) unsuspecting visitors.

 

Then, of course, there's the unmistakable sensation of being watched, and of feeling uncomfortable in certain areas, such as the notorious Shower Block.

 

If you're ever in Sydney, and aren't afraid of a little ghostly interaction, then I strongly recommend an overnight stay at the Quarantine Station.

 

It'll be an experience you're not likely to forget in a hurry.

 

For more information, visit Q Station.

 

Laura  

[Find out more about your hosts here]

 

Favourite Haunts :: Redruth Gaol



[Picture: Redruth Gaol © Ghost & Girl]

 

"We are born with the dead: See, they return, and bring us with them." - T.S. Eliot, Four Quarters

 

 

 

 

On the outskirts of an old mining town in South Australia's mid-north, surrounded by fields and guarded by gum-trees, is Redruth Gaol.

 

Built in the 1850s, Redruth was to be the first rural gaol in South Australia. The gaol had room for the gaolkeeper and his family, the turnkey, and up to thirty prisoners (both male and female).

 

Common offences resulting in imprisonment included drunkenness, petty vandalism, and debt. Punishment included hard labour.

 

In 1894, with the closing down of the mine, there was no further need for the town to have its own gaol, so Redruth closed its doors too, and the prisoners were sent to other institutions. However, in 1897, the gaol re-opened as the Redruth Girls Reformatory, and became home for thirty of the worst behaved girls in the State of South Australia. Girls from Kapunda Catholic Girls Reformatory (famous for its wayward priest) were sent here after that home was disbanded in 1909. In 1922, the girls staged a riot and Redruth was forced to close once again.

 

What actually happened behind its doors as both a gaol and reformatory is open to conjecture, speculation and imagination. However, upon its closure, the reformatory was compared in like to the Parramatta Industrial School for girls in the State of New South Wales, which was infamous for its hard, back-breaking routine, harsh (and sometimes terribly cruel) punishments, and its regular riots.

 

These days the gaol is controlled and maintained by the National Trust. Access to the gaol is made possible by a daytime history walk, and the occasional night-time ghost tour. It is one of the few South Australian gaols readily open to the public.

[Picture: Redruth Gaol © Ghost & Girl]

But, I hear you ask, is it haunted?

The most common unexplained activity that occurs at Redruth is the sound of heavy footsteps pacing the hardwood floors. Shuffling, movement and voices are sometimes heard from the empty cells as well. Doors open by themselves. The large, wooden gates rattle when there is no wind, and footsteps can be heard on the gravel outside when there is no one visibly about.

So, if it is haunted, who is doing the haunting?

The original gaolkeeper was Thomas Perry, who lived in and managed the gaol for twenty-five years. The prisoners that passed through its doors ranged from drunkards to the more seasoned criminals. The last Matron of the Girls Reformatory was a Miss Bubb, and the girls who called it home were classed as "incorrigibles": Damaged, difficult girls who were believed to be incapable of reform.

The source of the phenomena at Redruth may be any one of these people. Is the gaolkeeper, Mr Perry, still walking the halls, checking on his prisoners in the cells, and securing the gate? Does the Matron, Miss Bubb, remain in charge of her unruly crew of girls, almost 100 years later? Are the prisoners and the girls who were sent to Redruth still roaming its grounds, unable or unwilling to leave?

 

As a result of personal experience at the gaol, this writer is inclined to believe the reports of ghosts residing within its walls. I have heard the footsteps for myself - clear and unmistakable in the early hours of the morning from a room above, to which the only access door was locked. I've experienced the shuffling and sounds of movement from empty cells, and received a prompt smack on the back of the head (the Matron, perhaps?).



[Picture: Redruth Gaol © Ghost & Girl]

In relation to paranormal investigation, Redruth is still a new, mostly undiscovered location, but one which I believe has the potential to provide some fascinating evidence. As seems to be the thing with old mining towns found the world over, there are many ghost stories and tales of unexplained events here. For the moment, it seems that Redruth is content to spook its visitors with a variety of auditory phenomena, but I am yet to hear of any paranormal events that involve a visual encounter. That doesn't mean it won't happen, of course - in time.

 

On a perfectly still day, when there appears to be no one else within the gaol aside from oneself, even Redruth's silence seems oppressively ominous.

 

 

Want to know more? Try these websites:

 

Redruth Gaol

Redruth Girls Reformatory

The Burra Record: Girls' Reformatory, Redruth (newspaper article from 19 July 1922)

 

Ragged Schools, Industrial Schools and Reformatories (UK specific, however as a Queen's Colony, UK policy was implemented in South Australia)

 



Sarah  

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