Ghost Stories

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This afternoon, we were picked up for the long way round to Port Arthur - the site of an infamous prison, feared by convicts Australia wide.

Our first stop en route was the historic town of Richmond. Normally I use the word 'historic' lightly in Australia but Tassie was the second place the Europeans settled after Sydney and genuinely does have some pretty cool history.

We visited an old house which in its time has acted as a school, a doctor's surgery in addition to being a home. It was interesting to see how it would have looked back when the British first arrived and it also had a slight eeriness about it.

We walked amongst the houses, shops and old pub to the river. With the old bridge (I think it may have been the oldest in Australia, but correct me if I'm wrong), the water and an old house surrounded by the flowers in its beautiful garden, it was absolutely picture perfect and I totally understand why it's on so many Tasmanian postcards.

Across the bridge and over the hill stood Australia's oldest Catholic church standing proudly over the town since 1836.

Time to move on and off we go to visit the first place the Dutch arrived in Tasmania on the Abel Tasman expedition in 1642. Then was a drive up to the Tasman National Park lookout which gave views of the pristine Pirate's bay where previously, they would have stood up here to look out for pirates. Which I think were just a rumour to put convicts off from the idea of escaping.

Next stop was the Devil's Kitchen which may sound like a Gordan Ramsay show but is actually a collapsed cave, turned tunnel type thing stretching out into the sea. It kind of made me feel dizzy looking down into it.

Round the corner from ol' Lucifer's cooking spot stood the Tasman Arch where another part of the cave had collapsed to form a sort of bridge giving way to a bed of beautiful blue water.

A little drive and a little walk more brought us to Waterfall Bay where the water was all shades of blues and greens but where was the waterfall? Ah. There in the distance was a trickle of water falling the cliffs. Clearly today it didn't feel like being a waterfall - our guide told us it was the first time he hadn't seen it!

The next part before hitting Port Arthur had been my favourite part of the day so far...remarkable cave. And remarkable it was. I don't really know how to describe it other than an open cave with water drifting in and out of it. It really was something else though and I love that despite all the incredible things I've seen this past year, I can still be stopped in my tracks and amazed by things.

At last it was time for Port Arthur - a village built for the sole purpose of housing convicts and those there to mind them.

I was here to do a ghost tour and if I'd thought Oak Lodge in Richmond was eerie, it was nothing compared to here - the strange thing being that the grounds were absolutely beautiful in such a tragic setting.

Before the tour began, we visited the museum where we learned that you really didn't have to do much to end up here. They just needed labour to build up Tasmania and a population before the French tried to make their way over! Imagine that! Some people were torn from their families and taken across the world never to be seen again for crimes of 'dishonesty' or petty theft or even just general bad behaviour. Mad times.

We then checked out the grounds and stepped into the old gaol which had no (and apparently never had) roof. Considering how cold Tasmania gets, I believe that to be a little cruel. What did they do when it snowed?

It was soon time for our ghost tour t o begin and a man with a long black cloak came to collect us.

'Who wants to hold a lantern?'

'Me!'

'Didn't anyone ever tell you not to be the first to volunteer for things?'

Actually, no. So lantern bearer I was and I had the role of walking at and lighting up the back of the group.

The first visit on the tour was the church. Way back in the convict era, despite their criminal backgrounds, the prisoners were still deeply religious. We were told our first ghost story of the night of a convict who was murdered by another in the church by three blows to the head. Legend has it that he now sits above the church exit and has delivered one blow (of sharp air) to the head of a ghost-tourer meaning there were two blows left to be delivered. I walked under the arch of the exit and...nothing. No blow to the head for me today.

We next went into the house recorded as being the second most haunted in Australia. The house of the old reverend whose family were treated badly by the church and the government when he passed away.

As lantern bearer, I had to walk up to the house on my own and place my lantern outside the door. The women after me had to walk in alone and place her lantern in the living room. She came back out and said to me 'he's in there. On the stairs.' Great!

Luckily, I didn't see him and it was soon time to move on to the 'dissection room.' But not before being told about the soldier.

There have been a few reports of a man in uniform asking for a password and talking about sending money home to his family before being sent to the Maori war in New Zealand. Strangely enough, the records show that this story checks out and a young soldier died shortly before he was to be sent to war and took on extra hours to raise money to send home to his family. No one knows what the password is or what it's for but school kids on previous trips have suggested 'Miley Cyrus'. Worth a go I guess.


Now it was time for the dissection room which actually is no longer allowed to be called such (because it can't be proved). Just as I walked in and before I knew what the room was, I thought I'd heard horses. Then we get in there and are taken to a stone room with a dissection table and told that this may or may not have been where animals and perhaps unclaimed human bodies were possibly dissected what with the rise of Darwin and his incredible theory of evolution.

The last point on the tour was the absolute scariest (have I mentioned yet that it's dark?) A good old-fashioned solitary confinement prison. Set apart from civilisation, light and noise (to the point of where officers wore slippers so as not to produce footsteps). There was blindfolded exercise, no interaction and no anything really. Definitely enough to drive a person insane.

There was something super creepy about this place. It gave me the chills. Clearly, it was a horrible place to be and all these years on, you could still feel it. I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

Unfortunately/unfortunately I had no ghostly experiences but was on edge the whole time and spent a good hour being extremely scared! It was brilliant and anyone lucky enough to visit Tassie should definitely give it a go.

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