Tasmania is a tiny island at the southern most tip of Australia. It has the dubious reputation of being the coldest spot in Oz, with many areas on the island reputedly lucky to get two weeks of sunshine in the whole year. But the locals take that in their stride. Speaking of stride, you can almost feel the pace of life here slowing down remarkably from Melbourne and Sydney. Infact, it almost feels as if the people here actually walk a lot slower than the city slickers to their north. But Tasmanians are a hardy lot. And it's no wonder, given that the island first came into being as an outpost for convicts, they were imprisoned on this cold, remote island and often executed here too. With its old, colonial buildings, its cold, misty climate and its history of cruel beginnings, it is no wonder Tasmania is often referred to as the Ghost Island of Australia, there are no lack of ghost stories about the place. There is even a ghost tour around the famous Port Arthur. A very popular tour it is too, I might add. And those brave hearts who dare go on it are often 'rewarded' by many spooky and unexplained things that occur on this eerie trip. Of course when I touched down in Tasmania, the first thing I did was sign up for 'the tour', the ghost tour of Port Arthur. I wouldn't count myself as a brave heart. Far from that. I was just very 'kaypo' to see what all the fuss was about. When I rocked up for the tour, I was surprised to see how many others were just as curious. There were almost 20 people on the tour, ranging from a 12 year old Japanese girl to a German man who had just celebrated his seventieth birthday. Just goes to show the interest in ghosts knows no barrier.
You wouldn't think it possible at first glance that Port Arthur has such a spooky reputation. The place looks so pretty and cosy. Its structure is elegant and the surroundings so serene. But Port Arthur used to home Britain's most notorious convicts. A brooding sense of evil has lingered in the air ever since. Our first stop on the tour was the multi storey prison. It was built way back in 1848. It is hard to imagine the building once had such a dreaded reputation, because all that's left of it is a harmless looking shell, a sad, old building minus a roof. And they say it is free of ghosts. Don't knock it, because thousands of miles away in tiny Tasmania lies a perfect example of this tried and tested theory; people are often surprised this building of all places in Port Arthur is free of spirits. But the smaller prison just beside it, or what the locals call the Separate Prison, is quite another matter. In this innocent looking building, much horror and misery prevailed. It was the most dreaded place in the Port because here inmates were kept in solitary confinement. To humiliate and alienate the prisoners further, they were required to wear masks to hide their features. All this combined, worked wonders in keeping the prisoners in check. Infact, many a hard core criminal was reported to have gone berserk in this chamber of horrors. When our tour group was led into these little cells, the atmosphere in them was really quite suffocating. The individual cell are so small, there is barely enough room for a grown person to stretch out.
And it is so dark here even during the day, I could barely see my hands in front of my face. Imagine being locked in there for days on end. It could drive the strongest man around the bend and beyond. Years ago, a 14 year old boy was condemned to the Separate Prison for two weeks, while awaiting his execution. The poor lad was terrified of the darkness and silence that surrounded him there. He went stark raving mad, way before he was beheaded. But locals swear they can still hear his petrified screams in the late hours of the night. But the Separate Prison managed to break the spirit of people twice his age, so forbidding was the atmosphere there. Another prisoner, William Carter, sentenced to serve time there, couldn't heck it either. He finished himself off in his cell by hanging off the cord that held up his canvas bed. Coincidentally, a middle aged woman in our tour group broke into tears the minute she stepped foot into Carter's cell. She was fine just before she entered the cell and she could not understand why she felt so sad all of a sudden. But the tour guide was not surprised. It was only then that she told us what had happened in that cell years ago. She said many tourists that step into that particular cell suddenly feel very anxious and depressed long before they are even told of Carter's abrupt end by his own hands. And there was another creepy thing that happened here. The light bulbs in some of those cells would suddenly blow, just as we stepped in. At first I thought it was just part of a 'special effect' of the tour and I chuckled silently to myself at the thought. But my cynicism quickly flew out the window when the tour guide informed us, in all seriousness, that the short circuiting bulbs were not a planned act. Infact, countless electricians have been called in to study the problem and fix it. But they have had no luck.
It seems the problem is beyond science. The spirits roaming the building are determined to keep the place the way it has always been, dark and gloomy. When the guide said we were finished with the prison, I breathed a sigh of relief. I could barely wait to get out of that gloomy setting and back outside into the warm sunshine. It was like being born again. We were next ushered to what they used to call the commandant's residence; the British chief in charge of this convict settlement lived here in this rambling old house, overlooking the bay. The view was great here and to cap it off, there was a huge garden fashioned in typical English country style. One look at it and I started to take it easy. It seemed to me like we had moved away from the most spooky parts of Port Arthur. But I was wrong. The house is teeming with a assortment of restless spirits. The tour guide told us of a strange incident a few years back when the solid gate leading up to the cottage was opened by unseen hands in full view of a group of tourists. We were warned that the unearthly powers that be within the house are so strong, they have the power to stop the wrist watches of many tourists. But my crusty old 'Rolex' picked up in Phuket for not more than $10, held up well against the Dark Forces. Perhaps its only the genuine watches that get affected, I can't say for sure; but my Swiss friend was not so lucky. His Seiko watch, the genuine article, went quite psycho. When he walked into the house, his watch started to tick backwards.
But we first walked into the deceptively cosy looking garden. In the late evening hour many who wander around here have often left the piercing stare of an unseen person lurking in the background. Those who have responded by turning around rather suddenly have been rewarded with a heart stopping sight at the north east side of the garden. A spectral male figure with his head twisted to one side like a hanging victim stares back at them. Others have seen the same figure in the hallway of the house. But for me, the most eerie feature of the house is the room located right at the end of the building. It is just an ordinary looking room, only much smaller than the rest of the rooms in the house. But in one corner of the room is a spindy old rocking chair. I remember staring at the chair and feeling somehow that it added a touch of gloom to the room. To be honest, the minute I walked into the room, it felt gloomy, much gloomier than the rest of the old house. I noticed the little hairs at the back of my neck bristle. At the same time this happened to me, another older man in our tour group quickly walked out of the room. When I met up with him a little later on, I asked why he had turned around and walked out of the room so abruptly. He shrugged his shoulders and said in a rather embarrassed tone, 'I thought I saw an angry, old woman sitting in the chair.' He did not know what we already knew from the tour guide about the room. You see, it used to be the room of a former nanny. She was hired to look after the children in the house. She worked there for years. But an unfortunate 'accident' brought her job to an abrupt end. One of the children under her care was found dead one evening.
The circumstances that caused the death of the poor kid were never established but the nanny copped the blame, and she was shown the door that very day in a most unceremonious way. The little old lady may have been forced to leave physically, but she remains there in spirit to this very day. And how do we know this? Early one Christmas eve morning, a worker found the eerie, old chair gently rocking by itself. On another Christmas eve, another worker heard whispery voices coming from the room. The worker walked slowly forward and gently pushed open the door to the room. She peered in to see who was huddled together there in quiet conference. What she saw made her jaw drop open. The little room was empty, and the voices had abruptly stopped. But what I found creepiest about that room was the tour guide's warning. She said taking photographs in the room had always been very difficult; cameras seem to mysteriously jam, flashes suddenly stopped working. And she warned that those lucky enough to get a shot would find ghostly images appear on the negative. Sure enough many of those in my group found their cameras throwing strange tantrums when they tried to use them in the nanny's room. I held my breath, focused my Panasonic on the rocking chair and pressed down on the button. The flash went off on cue. I silently congratulated myself for not letting the powers of auto suggestion get the better of me. After all, they do say that once an idea is put in your head, you automatically play it out.
Just to play it safe, I decided to quickly snap another photo of the creepy old chair. Again, I was pleased as punch that there was no trouble; the camera reeled off another shot. But the story did not even there. When I got back to Singapore, I developed my film at the local neighbourhood Kodak processing centre. The minute the man handed me my photos, I could not bear the suspense of waiting to get home. I quickly thumbed through the stack of photos to see how they had turned out. I noticed right away there were no photos of the nanny's room. I pulled out the negatives and scanned them. Aha! There were definitely two shots in there that clearly showed the creepy old rocking chair. I raced up to the shop owner an asked why they had not been developed. The big man, wearing just a white singlet, had a strange look in his eyes when he said in gruff Hokkien, 'It can't be done.' I knew better than to push the matter further. Even though the nanny's gloomy little room with the eerie looking rocking chair was now safely thousands of miles away, I still shuddered at the thought of it in my mind's eye. I realised she had got me too. Perhaps she resented the way her private little room has now been invaded by hordes of inquisitive tourists. And perhaps this is how she gets even with those that try to photograph her room. They do say the unseen powers that reside within that seemingly cosy cottage have been known to have a hold on people long after they have left Port Arthur. There was a famous incident where a visitor sight seeing at Port Arthur, but did not get around to finishing it.
Some days later many miles away, the amateur artist fished out the sketch determined to finish it off from memory, but he froze when he saw his sketch. It was already finished. The cottage was complete with a female figure in period costume standing in the background, eerily staring back at the bewildered artist. Who that woman was, nobody can say for sure. But a female was again responsible for leaving a lasting impression on an archaeologist who slept in the house while it was being restored in 1983. In the middle of the night the tired man became slowly aware he was being roughly tapped on his right shoulder. His weary eyes slowly opened, but they quickly dilated at the sight before him. An elderly woman, with no body or arms, loomed over his bed. As he lay there in a cold sweat praying he was only dreaming, the horrifying spectre slowly floated up to the ceiling and faded away. By the time our tour group digested all these spooky stories at the commandant's house, it wasn't just the odd wrist watch that had missed a few beats, believe me. But there was more action ahead. Our next stop was the innocent looking personage where the chaplin used to live, we assume, happily and well amidst all the misery and deprivation around him. But even this place, that housed the man of God, has not been spared of spooks. Infact, the most famous ghost story here has to do with a Reverend, Reverend George Eastman, who lived in the personage in the middle of the last century. The good Reverend was enormously over weight and he died, unfortunately, in a room upstairs. As hard as they tried, they simply could not get his coffin down the narrow stairs of the house.
Out of sheer desperation, they used a rope to lower his coffin from the bedroom window to the ground below. But it proved to be a messy affair. The rope simply could not take the weight of the heavyset dead man. So you can guess what happened next, it snapped. The Reverend's bloated corpse tumble into the gutter and lay there spread eagle. It was sometime before it was carted away by a group of huffing and puffing men. But that was not the end of the matter. Years later people complained of smelling rotten flesh and hearing moans and groans coming from the personage. Others actually saw the late Reverend's corpse lying spread eagle in the gutter. Then there was the business of the bedroom downstairs in the personage. The sister of the Catholic chaplin slept there while her brother was away. But she was rudely awoken one warm summer's night. A loud banging was coming from the walls and floor all around her. The petrified woman did not know what to do. She simply sat in bed and prayed like never before. But the sound continued to reverberate around her for a good few minutes before it abruptly stopped. Later every possible angle was explored, but no explanation was found for what had happened. But a few months after the incident, a maid cleaning the very same room let out a terrified scream before falling to the floor, unconscious. When she came around, she could not stop shaking. And no one could get out of her what she had seen. It was days later that she finally dared to let on what she had witnessed. An evil looking figure stood at the window with a knife in its hand, poised to strike some invisible victim.
even the man of God who lived there was not spared. While the Reverend was walking down the stairs one evening, he felt a sensation that made him so frightened, he called out loud the name of God. A distinct cold and clammy hand came to rest over his own on the banister rail. But all this happened years ago when people used to live in the personage. Now the personage is unoccupied and I was left wondering if any ghostly presence still stalked the place. As if reading my mind, the guide assured us the ghostly sights and sounds continue to fill the house right up to this day. Workers who clean the house often complain of hearing strange noises and seeing lights in the house when no one is in. One worker, until then had not believed in ghosts, was petrified to find herself upstairs in the empty house when she heard the unthinkable. The stairs were creaking loudly from the bottom step right up to the top step slowly and clearly, one at a time. She stood there trembling, waiting to see someone come up the stairs. But there was no one. Instead, the light just above the stairs began to sway eerily from side to side. In the early 1980s three builders stayed in the house while it was being renovated. Mind you, this was a 100 years from the time the cleaning lady had seen the evil figure with the dagger. One of the builders was entering his room one night when he spotted a woman dressed in old fashioned clothes, standing by the foot of his bed. He felt the temperature in the room dive; the curtains in the room flapped about as if there was a great breeze blowing through the window, although the windows were firmly closed.
She eyed the man for a few seconds then evaporate into thin air. In the next few seconds, everything in the room returned to normal. everything, except the terrified man. His temperature shot up to register a high fever he simply could not shake off for days. Another builder woke up in the dead of the night, gasping for air. he thought he was being attacked. He said it felt like someone was sitting on his chest, driving the breath out of his lungs. But just as he thought he would suffocate, the unexpected happened. He heard a great hiss and the weight on his chest immediately lifted. All three of the builders also reported hearing the famous banging noises, way past the time they stopped working on renovating the spooky place. I wonder if the work they were carrying out might have upset the spirits residing in the old house. After all, the renovations were pretty heavy duty. They were removing the second storey of the house where coincidentally most of the hauntings were reported to bring the house back to its original, single storey design. Our last stop was the solemn looking church at Port Arthur. You would think surely the house of God would be spared any eerie events. But no, not in Port Arthur. Here everything is tainted by the hand of Darkness. Infact, one of the most talked about incidents happened at the church only six years ago. It was 10.45 pm exactly on a clear, starry night. An excited bunch of chattering tourists had assembled outside the church for a night tour of Port Arthur. But out of the blue something happened that left the entire lot of people speechless.
The whole church lit up like a fire cracker. The blinding light illuminated every nook and corner of the building. They know what it was not; certainly not lightning, and it was much brighter than a dozen camera flash lights all popping at the next exact same time. So what was it? Just another unsolved mystery, courtesy of Port Arthur's Spirit World. You would think a spooky place like Port Arthur will eventually chill out. After all, they do say that over time the incidents of ghosts become fewer and apparitions fade out. Port Arthur is an exception, tragedy and death seem to be a way of life here. Just recently, on May 6, 1996 to be exact, a crazed gunman shot and killed 35 tourists, two of them Malaysians. The massacre was the world's worst ever mass murder by a lone gunman; it sent the whole Australian nation reeling in shock and the government was forced to review the guns laws in the country. But in Port Arthur, it means just one thing, adding another 30 odd people to the long list of humans killed here in the prime of their life...
But we first walked into the deceptively cosy looking garden. In the late evening hour many who wander around here have often left the piercing stare of an unseen person lurking in the background. Those who have responded by turning around rather suddenly have been rewarded with a heart stopping sight at the north east side of the garden. A spectral male figure with his head twisted to one side like a hanging victim stares back at them. Others have seen the same figure in the hallway of the house. But for me, the most eerie feature of the house is the room located right at the end of the building. It is just an ordinary looking room, only much smaller than the rest of the rooms in the house. But in one corner of the room is a spindy old rocking chair. I remember staring at the chair and feeling somehow that it added a touch of gloom to the room. To be honest, the minute I walked into the room, it felt gloomy, much gloomier than the rest of the old house. I noticed the little hairs at the back of my neck bristle. At the same time this happened to me, another older man in our tour group quickly walked out of the room. When I met up with him a little later on, I asked why he had turned around and walked out of the room so abruptly. He shrugged his shoulders and said in a rather embarrassed tone, 'I thought I saw an angry, old woman sitting in the chair.' He did not know what we already knew from the tour guide about the room. You see, it used to be the room of a former nanny. She was hired to look after the children in the house. She worked there for years. But an unfortunate 'accident' brought her job to an abrupt end. One of the children under her care was found dead one evening.
The circumstances that caused the death of the poor kid were never established but the nanny copped the blame, and she was shown the door that very day in a most unceremonious way. The little old lady may have been forced to leave physically, but she remains there in spirit to this very day. And how do we know this? Early one Christmas eve morning, a worker found the eerie, old chair gently rocking by itself. On another Christmas eve, another worker heard whispery voices coming from the room. The worker walked slowly forward and gently pushed open the door to the room. She peered in to see who was huddled together there in quiet conference. What she saw made her jaw drop open. The little room was empty, and the voices had abruptly stopped. But what I found creepiest about that room was the tour guide's warning. She said taking photographs in the room had always been very difficult; cameras seem to mysteriously jam, flashes suddenly stopped working. And she warned that those lucky enough to get a shot would find ghostly images appear on the negative. Sure enough many of those in my group found their cameras throwing strange tantrums when they tried to use them in the nanny's room. I held my breath, focused my Panasonic on the rocking chair and pressed down on the button. The flash went off on cue. I silently congratulated myself for not letting the powers of auto suggestion get the better of me. After all, they do say that once an idea is put in your head, you automatically play it out.
Just to play it safe, I decided to quickly snap another photo of the creepy old chair. Again, I was pleased as punch that there was no trouble; the camera reeled off another shot. But the story did not even there. When I got back to Singapore, I developed my film at the local neighbourhood Kodak processing centre. The minute the man handed me my photos, I could not bear the suspense of waiting to get home. I quickly thumbed through the stack of photos to see how they had turned out. I noticed right away there were no photos of the nanny's room. I pulled out the negatives and scanned them. Aha! There were definitely two shots in there that clearly showed the creepy old rocking chair. I raced up to the shop owner an asked why they had not been developed. The big man, wearing just a white singlet, had a strange look in his eyes when he said in gruff Hokkien, 'It can't be done.' I knew better than to push the matter further. Even though the nanny's gloomy little room with the eerie looking rocking chair was now safely thousands of miles away, I still shuddered at the thought of it in my mind's eye. I realised she had got me too. Perhaps she resented the way her private little room has now been invaded by hordes of inquisitive tourists. And perhaps this is how she gets even with those that try to photograph her room. They do say the unseen powers that reside within that seemingly cosy cottage have been known to have a hold on people long after they have left Port Arthur. There was a famous incident where a visitor sight seeing at Port Arthur, but did not get around to finishing it.
Some days later many miles away, the amateur artist fished out the sketch determined to finish it off from memory, but he froze when he saw his sketch. It was already finished. The cottage was complete with a female figure in period costume standing in the background, eerily staring back at the bewildered artist. Who that woman was, nobody can say for sure. But a female was again responsible for leaving a lasting impression on an archaeologist who slept in the house while it was being restored in 1983. In the middle of the night the tired man became slowly aware he was being roughly tapped on his right shoulder. His weary eyes slowly opened, but they quickly dilated at the sight before him. An elderly woman, with no body or arms, loomed over his bed. As he lay there in a cold sweat praying he was only dreaming, the horrifying spectre slowly floated up to the ceiling and faded away. By the time our tour group digested all these spooky stories at the commandant's house, it wasn't just the odd wrist watch that had missed a few beats, believe me. But there was more action ahead. Our next stop was the innocent looking personage where the chaplin used to live, we assume, happily and well amidst all the misery and deprivation around him. But even this place, that housed the man of God, has not been spared of spooks. Infact, the most famous ghost story here has to do with a Reverend, Reverend George Eastman, who lived in the personage in the middle of the last century. The good Reverend was enormously over weight and he died, unfortunately, in a room upstairs. As hard as they tried, they simply could not get his coffin down the narrow stairs of the house.
Out of sheer desperation, they used a rope to lower his coffin from the bedroom window to the ground below. But it proved to be a messy affair. The rope simply could not take the weight of the heavyset dead man. So you can guess what happened next, it snapped. The Reverend's bloated corpse tumble into the gutter and lay there spread eagle. It was sometime before it was carted away by a group of huffing and puffing men. But that was not the end of the matter. Years later people complained of smelling rotten flesh and hearing moans and groans coming from the personage. Others actually saw the late Reverend's corpse lying spread eagle in the gutter. Then there was the business of the bedroom downstairs in the personage. The sister of the Catholic chaplin slept there while her brother was away. But she was rudely awoken one warm summer's night. A loud banging was coming from the walls and floor all around her. The petrified woman did not know what to do. She simply sat in bed and prayed like never before. But the sound continued to reverberate around her for a good few minutes before it abruptly stopped. Later every possible angle was explored, but no explanation was found for what had happened. But a few months after the incident, a maid cleaning the very same room let out a terrified scream before falling to the floor, unconscious. When she came around, she could not stop shaking. And no one could get out of her what she had seen. It was days later that she finally dared to let on what she had witnessed. An evil looking figure stood at the window with a knife in its hand, poised to strike some invisible victim.
even the man of God who lived there was not spared. While the Reverend was walking down the stairs one evening, he felt a sensation that made him so frightened, he called out loud the name of God. A distinct cold and clammy hand came to rest over his own on the banister rail. But all this happened years ago when people used to live in the personage. Now the personage is unoccupied and I was left wondering if any ghostly presence still stalked the place. As if reading my mind, the guide assured us the ghostly sights and sounds continue to fill the house right up to this day. Workers who clean the house often complain of hearing strange noises and seeing lights in the house when no one is in. One worker, until then had not believed in ghosts, was petrified to find herself upstairs in the empty house when she heard the unthinkable. The stairs were creaking loudly from the bottom step right up to the top step slowly and clearly, one at a time. She stood there trembling, waiting to see someone come up the stairs. But there was no one. Instead, the light just above the stairs began to sway eerily from side to side. In the early 1980s three builders stayed in the house while it was being renovated. Mind you, this was a 100 years from the time the cleaning lady had seen the evil figure with the dagger. One of the builders was entering his room one night when he spotted a woman dressed in old fashioned clothes, standing by the foot of his bed. He felt the temperature in the room dive; the curtains in the room flapped about as if there was a great breeze blowing through the window, although the windows were firmly closed.
She eyed the man for a few seconds then evaporate into thin air. In the next few seconds, everything in the room returned to normal. everything, except the terrified man. His temperature shot up to register a high fever he simply could not shake off for days. Another builder woke up in the dead of the night, gasping for air. he thought he was being attacked. He said it felt like someone was sitting on his chest, driving the breath out of his lungs. But just as he thought he would suffocate, the unexpected happened. He heard a great hiss and the weight on his chest immediately lifted. All three of the builders also reported hearing the famous banging noises, way past the time they stopped working on renovating the spooky place. I wonder if the work they were carrying out might have upset the spirits residing in the old house. After all, the renovations were pretty heavy duty. They were removing the second storey of the house where coincidentally most of the hauntings were reported to bring the house back to its original, single storey design. Our last stop was the solemn looking church at Port Arthur. You would think surely the house of God would be spared any eerie events. But no, not in Port Arthur. Here everything is tainted by the hand of Darkness. Infact, one of the most talked about incidents happened at the church only six years ago. It was 10.45 pm exactly on a clear, starry night. An excited bunch of chattering tourists had assembled outside the church for a night tour of Port Arthur. But out of the blue something happened that left the entire lot of people speechless.
The whole church lit up like a fire cracker. The blinding light illuminated every nook and corner of the building. They know what it was not; certainly not lightning, and it was much brighter than a dozen camera flash lights all popping at the next exact same time. So what was it? Just another unsolved mystery, courtesy of Port Arthur's Spirit World. You would think a spooky place like Port Arthur will eventually chill out. After all, they do say that over time the incidents of ghosts become fewer and apparitions fade out. Port Arthur is an exception, tragedy and death seem to be a way of life here. Just recently, on May 6, 1996 to be exact, a crazed gunman shot and killed 35 tourists, two of them Malaysians. The massacre was the world's worst ever mass murder by a lone gunman; it sent the whole Australian nation reeling in shock and the government was forced to review the guns laws in the country. But in Port Arthur, it means just one thing, adding another 30 odd people to the long list of humans killed here in the prime of their life...
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