Obsession with true crime and all things haunted just seems to be growing. I 100% do not understand it, but I strongly encourage your right to continue trying to scare yourselves silly. Do you bb. In fact, if you’re looking to add a little mild terror to your vacay I’ll even help you find the most haunted houses in New South Wales. Because that’s just the kind of supportive person I am.
And let’s not forget that New South Wales was the first place convicts were brought to live soooo you know there’s going to be some gruesome and sad stories around.
Picton
Let’s just kick off by really delving in deep with a whole haunted town, shall we? The MOST haunted town in the whole of Australia, no less. At least so they say.
Picton is only about a hour’s drive from Sydney and actually super pretty with panoramic countryside vista BUT it’s also haunted as heck.
There’s the Mushroom Tunnel, aka the former Redbank Range Railway. This hotspot of wandering ghosts connected train services to Melbourne from 1867 to 1919 then was used as an armouring in WWII. After that is was used for commercial mushroom growing which is very funny to me for some reason but also makes sense given the name.
The most famous ghost often spotted down here, along with two other female companions, is believed to be Emily Bollard, who was by an oncoming train when she was walking through the tunnel. Oh yeah, and her ghost HAS NO FACE. Also expect random gusts of wind, orbs, crying, voices from nowhere, sudden chills and unexplained shadows.
Around the rest of town you have the cranky matron haunting the old maternity hospital, the three main ghosts of Wollondilly Shire Hall, a jukebox that plays itself even when unplugged at Imperial Hotel, ghostly sounds of swimming around in Stonequarry Creek and wayyyy more.
Monte Cristo Homestead
If tours and even sleepovers in a place crawling with multiple ghosts including the married couple and OG owners of the place Mr. and Mrs. Crawley, and a whole bunch of their staff that were allegedly pretty horrifically mistreated.
One of our own actually went to check out this ridiculously haunted place herself, because we’re nothing if not thorough in our haunted research. You can read her IRL experience here:
Q Station
https://www.instagram.com/p/BuOS6rpHYQv/
You know you were waiting for a Quarantine Station. Sitting in Manly, Sydney, Q Station was built in the 1830s the filter out diseases coming from migrant ships. Of the 26,000 recorded people who stayed on site, about 600 died before it was closed in the 1980s. That’s not even that long ago!
Apparently, there are 50+ ghosts roaming around here, and visitors often claim they were pushed by unexplained forces.
Cockatoo Island
Cockatoo Island in Sydney is actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site thanks to its role in convict transportation back int he day, it’s also got amazing harbour views and a bunch of really cool events. BUT. It’s also super haunted, thanks to it having been a colonial prison, a dockyard and a reformatory school for trouble girls over the years. All of those things obviously lend themselves to serious mistreatment, botched escape and just a bunch of misery. So yep, all the things that seem to end up in a lot of hauntings.
