DIARY OF A GHOST HUNTER

 I have just spent a weekend at the historic homestead - Lochinvar House, just outside of Lochinvar in the NSW Hunter Valley. This was, for me, a team bonding opportunity and a chance to get away from worries associated with Covid. It was also where members of my ghost hunting volunteers got to head onto this site before we invited in the public, to check out the stories of ghosts and alleged hauntings. Now, as usual, not all historic houses are haunted. And even more intriguing, it seems that not all historic houses are haunted for all the families that live therein. Many times I have heard this - one family may experience seeing and hearing strange things happening at all hours of the day and night. Yet, another family will move in and.....nothing! And so it is.. Why is it like this? I don't know. Do the ghosts pick us? Lochinvar House was built back in the late 1820's by Leslie Duguid who was granted a enormous amount of land in 1822. He was one of the first land owners in N...

A blacksmith from Northumberland, England, 37 year old Joseph Lowes travelled with his wife Francis, aged 37, and sons Samuel aged 17 and Isaac aged 6 and 2 year old twin daughters Sarah and Margaret out to Australia in one of the ships that were firstly directed to the Quarantine grounds at North Head Manly. Despite Joseph's efforts, and the attentions of Dr Gibson and Matron Elizabeth Bant, upon arrival in Sydney on the 19th of August 1878 the ship was quarantined for numerous diseases. Among its 453 passengers  some were stricken with measles, scarlet fever, typhoid fever and ophthalmia and eye inflammation. Nine deaths at sea were followed by another four after landing,  and all the victims were aged 7 years or younger. Dying on the 25th of August, Isaac Lowes was buried alongside fellow immigrant Thomas Convoy, aged four years old, with both of their families remaining and quarantine until late September. The lonely grave of Isaac Lowes was once far from solitary, as a on...

 Evening News (Rockhampton, Qld. : 1924 - 1941), Friday 4 August 1939                    Yarralumla - The Governor General's House Canberra Canberra "Ghost" Haunts Home Of Kents STORY OF DIAMOND THEFT TOLD IN OLD LETTER SYDNEY.  Yarralumla, House, which is to be the Canberra home of the Duke of Kent, has a ghost.  It has never been seen, but half a century ago there were tales of a shadowy spirit of a murdered aborigine—' which used to flit uneasily about the countryside on dark nights. In the dusty archives at Canberra an old letter purports to give the history of the ghost.  Unsigned and dated 1881, it was discovered when the Commonwealth Government took over the old house in 1920 for use as Government House.  It told an interesting but probably entirely romantic tale of the theft of a valuable diamond,  bushrangers, loyalty of a faithful blackfellow, and the burial of the gem beneath a giant deodar in the...

WHICH WAS IT? SUICIDE OR MURDER?? Here is what the newspapers said... DRIVEN TO SUICIDE BY ILL-HEALTH.   This is from the newspaper article taken from TROVE   A magisterial inquiry was held at the Quarantine Station yesterday respecting the death of an employee named William Hay, aged 56, who was found in a flat behind the stables on Wednesday, with a bullet wound in the head, and another in the abdomen.  He had a revolver clasped in his right hand. A fellow employee slated that the deceased had lately been suffering from bronchitis and asthma, neuralgia in the head, and internal pains.  When ill he had been heard to say that life was not worth living, and had often asked the effects of certain drugs.   He leaves a widow and two children.   The Coroner recorded a finding of suicide whilst suffering from ill-health.  And from: https://www.northheadsanctuaryfoundation.org.au/newsletters/  “SUICIDE AT NORTH HEAD" The City Coroner...

A stone’s throw from the waterfront mansions lining Sydney Harbour, Cockatoo Island — a UNESCO World Heritage Site — has a grim and varied history. It was a brutal colonial prison — like an Australian Alcatraz — between 1839 and 1869, where numerous prisoners died in custody and others died trying to flee. One famous story involves a guard being murdered by an inmate. The island became a colonial jail to take in the overflow of prisoners on Norfolk Island. After 1900 it became a crucial shipbuilding yard and naval dockyard, where conditions were better, but tough. Workers were killed in gruesome industrial accidents and at least one person mysteriously vanished. Tourists and even staff have reported various kinds of paranormal activity on the island, which draws ghost hunters from around the world. And while the grisly stories — and alleged ghosts — from the prison and dockyard eras are frightful stuff, they don’t seem to leave visitors as unsettled as those from a thi...