Great Australian Ghost Stories

by Richard Davis

  There’s a quality of mystery and romance about lighthouses that no other buildings possess. It may be their graceful shape, their picturesque locations or the comforting beams of light they project over treacherous waters at night. Whatever their charm to observers (and in particular to seafarers), one suspects it is soon lost on those charged with maintaining them and on their families, condemned to lonely lives in remote, windswept and wave-washed locations. At last count there were about a dozen lighthouses around the coast of Australia laying claim to being haunted. The following is a sampling of their spooky stories.

  The 138-year-old lighthouse that overlooks Belmore Basin at Wollongong is the haunt of two ghosts. Pilot William Edwards, who guided thousands of vessels in and out of Wollongong Harbour and who drowned when his boat capsized during a storm, is said to walk the observation deck at the top of the lighthouse on stormy nights, watching out for ships in distress.

  His companion is George Smith, lighthouse keeper during the 1920s and 30s. Smith was a familiar figure in the streets of Wollongong during his lifetime: tall, straight-backed even in old age and always willing to tell anyone who asked how he lost one hand and forearm while working as a sugar-cane cutter in Queensland.

  Every evening at dusk George would climb the spiral stairs to light the enormous revolving lantern at the top of the lighthouse, content in the knowledge that his work was averting disaster and saving lives. George Smith died sixty-odd years ago, but some say he still climbs the stairs every evening. Hollow footsteps slowly climbing upwards have been heard many times and wet footprints found on the stairs when the lighthouse has been securely locked. That William Edwards is seen and not heard, and George Smith heard but not seen may account for why these two salty spirits seem happy to share their confined haunt.

  Split Point Lighthouse at Aireys Inlet on the coast of Western Victoria has a much longer reputation for ghostly goings-on and, given its colourful history, that is no surprise. The first lighthouse keeper (another George, but this time with a less common surname — Bardin) came from the Channel Islands and broke both his legs when he fell from the crow’s-nest of the ship that brought him to Australia. Just what passenger Bardin was doing ‘aloft’ on the long journey is not recorded. Perhaps he was trying to get used to heights in preparation for the job that awaited him on his arrival. While recovering in Williamstown Hospital, rats ate away most of both Bardin’s heels, so it was a wonder that he ever managed to report for duty.

  A later keeper, Richard Baker (with the odd middle name of ‘Joy’) also assured himself a place in local history by devising a way of spending his evenings in the local pub instead of keeping the light. Baker scratched a hole in the black paint at the back of the lamp glass in line with the Aireys Inlet pub, so that each time the light rotated it ‘winked’ in that direction. Baker could thus relax with his mates over a few ales and check the light was still burning and revolving.

  The ghost of Split Point Lighthouse is not, however, either of these colourful characters, but the unmarried daughter of one of them, or of another lighthouse keeper. Local legend has it that the young woman went out fishing in a small boat with her dad one day and chose that time to tell him that she was pregnant. The father got agitated, the boat rocked and the daughter fell into the ocean and drowned. Her fetching ghost, it is claimed, rises out of the surf below the lighthouse and calls to young men on the shore to join her in the water, and that until one gullible guy obliges, her restless spirit will find no rest. Well, that’s how the story goes and the fact that there are no records of the death by drowning of a lighthouse keeper’s daughter, has not stopped it flourishing or several young men swearing that they almost succumbed to the ghost’s sexy, watery allure.

  Of all the haunted lighthouse stories, two from Queensland take the prizes for atmosphere and all-round spookiness. The first concerns the light that once stood on Pine Islet and if you’ve never heard of this place you can be forgiven. Pine Islet is a single, steep, granite rock, just 800 metres in length, part of the remote Percy Islands group, south-east of Mackay.

  In 1927 Pine Islet was the scene of a gruesome ceremony. The authorities decided to build a new lighthouse keeper’s cottage on the island that year and the only available flat land was a grave site. An order was obtained to exhume the body and relocate the grave.

  The headstone identified the grave as that of Dorothea McKay, wife of a lighthouse keeper, who had died of cancer in 1895. When the grave was opened the coffin was found to have rotted away. The workmen collected some loose bones, a set of false teeth and a wedding ring and duly reburied them some distance away. Everyone seemed satisfied with the arrangement — except Dorothea.

  When the lighthouse keeper moved into the new cottage, built over the old grave, strange things began to happen. Invisible knuckles rapped loudly on the front door, then footsteps and faint muttering sounds (indecipherable but clearly angry) were heard inside the cottage.

  In the 1980s the lighthouse was automated and the last lighthouse keeper departed, but right up until then the ghost’s visits continued. In July 1985 keeper Darrell Roche was reported as saying: ‘The last time she came was about eighteen months ago. There was a knock on the door, then footsteps through the cottage into the lounge room. There she stopped — above her original grave — and we’ve never heard anything from her since.’

  Perhaps Dorothea McKay was satisfied when she heard that she was going to be left in peace. Maybe she found her way back to her original resting place that night in 1985. Darrell Roche and many others hope so. She is unlikely to be disturbed again, for when the lighthouse became redundant a few years back it was dismantled, shipped to the mainland and reconstructed beside Mackay Harbour as a tourist attraction.

  400 kilometres south of Pine Islet lies Lady Elliot Island. As well as a lighthouse, there’s a popular resort on Lady Elliot; not as glamorous (or as expensive) as most Barrier Reef resorts, but richly endowed with natural attractions — and some unnatural ones.

  One of the conducted walks on Lady Elliot Island takes guests up a narrow track to the centre of the island after dark, to visit a tiny well-kept graveyard. There are only two graves there but each headstone tells a tragic story. One is the last resting place of thirty-year-old Phoebe Jane Phillips, daughter of the lighthouse keeper during the last decade of the nineteenth century. Phoebe lived a sheltered life on the island with only her parents for company before dying of pneumonia in 1896.

  The other grave is that of Susannah McKee, wife of a later lighthouse keeper. Susannah McKee came from Ballyganaway in Ireland and bore her husband, Tom, four sons before accompanying him to Lady Elliot Island. Susannah found living conditions on the island harsher than she expected. Supplies had to be brought by ship and were invariably late. Meat and other perishables would not keep. The living quarters were cramped, Spartan and windswept. Medical attention was unavailable. Loneliness, boredom and the sense of isolation weighed heavily on Susannah’s mind. After her youngest son went off to boarding school in Rockhampton, she decided she could stand the conditions no longer. On 23 April 1907 she put on her best dress, her good shoes and her favourite hat, walked out onto the guano-loading jetty below the lighthouse and threw herself into the sea.

  There were rumours at the time that Tom McKee had pushed his wife off the jetty, but no one could prove murder. Tom recovered his wife’s body and buried her beside Phoebe Phillips on the hilltop but, for some reason, Susannah McKee did not rest easy in her grave. The first recorded sighting of a woman fitting Susannah’s description dates from the late 1930s. The keeper at that time, Arthur Brumpton, looked down from the lighthouse balcony one evening and saw a female figure dressed in turn-of-the-century clothing walking between the lighthouse and the three cottages behind it.

  Brumpton’s young daughter Margaret also recalled, years later: ‘I often felt the presence of a stranger who I sensed was a woman, watching me or following me about during all our years on the island and I heard sharp, light
, ghostly footsteps echoing in the lighthouse so many times I lost count. I grew up fearing that one day whoever it was that was watching me and making those eerie sounds would chase me up the stairs and push me off the balcony at the top of the lighthouse!’

  Fortunately that didn’t happen, but the Brumptons’ story had a curious sequel. When the family were returning to Brisbane in 1940 the captain of the ship they travelled on showed them some of photos of people who had lived on Lady Elliot Island at different times. When he produced a photograph of Susannah McKee, Arthur Brumpton recognised the woman he had seen.*

  Like the one on Pine Islet the Lady Elliot lighthouse was automated in 1985 and staff at the newly established resort took over the few duties that were needed to maintain it. The last lighthouse keeper handed over the three cottages to the resort’s operations manager and a multitude of strange things have occurred ever since then.

  The operations manager told how, on the night of the handover, he and the lighthouse keeper heard strange footsteps in one of the abandoned cottages. Two of the resort staff moved into the same cottage soon after: a groundsman and a chef. After they finished moving their furniture in the two men decided to take a break and sat on a tractor parked in front of the cottage. It was an unusually still afternoon with hardly enough wind to stir nearby trees. Suddenly an empty plastic ice-cream container came flying out of the front door of the unoccupied cottage and landed at their feet. At dinner that evening the pair told their workmates about the flying container and were told the story of the mysterious footsteps. The groundsman laughed and said he didn’t believe in ghosts. That night he was hurled bodily from his bed in the cottage and landed on the floor with a bone-shaking thud. After that he slept on the verandah.

  A few nights later he woke around 1 am and, to his horror, could clearly see the transparent figure of a woman standing in the cottage doorway. ‘She was staring at me with big, unblinking eyes. Instantly I felt cold all over. Goosebumps rose on my skin and the hair on my arms and legs stood up like bristles on a brush. I also had the strange feeling that I was fixed like a specimen on a microscope slide and that this “thing” was studying me like I was some kind of freak. I was so scared I couldn’t even cry out. I just lay there until the figure faded and disappeared.’

  The ghost of Susannah McKee has also been seen peering out of the cottage windows and striding across the island’s small airstrip — and not always alone. On some occasions she has been accompanied by a young woman (Phoebe Phillips?) and an old man wearing blue overalls. A boy wearing a Stetson hat has also been seen by staff and guests, leaning against an Indian almond tree between two of the cottages. Mysterious bloodstains have appeared from time to time on the fourth step of the staircase inside the lighthouse; and the plaintive voice of a little girl calling for her mother has been heard. All of which suggests that there are dark secrets, unrecorded, in the island’s history.

  Crank-started generators that supplied all the power to the resort in pre-solar days were housed in a locked room. Once they stopped suddenly, plunging the whole complex into darkness, but before anyone reached the locked room they started up again. Some old kerosene tins stored in the generator room were heard rattling and crashing about. A team of painters contracted to repaint the old lighthouse cottages found that every time they climbed their scaffolding it began to shake violently, but when they got down the shaking stopped. A female guest camping alone one night woke to hear the zippers on her tent opening and closing. She got up and looked around, but there was no one outside. As she returned to her bed she realised to her alarm that the zippers were on the inside. In the bar of the resort a glass tumbler spontaneously imploded moments after a guest finished drinking from it. The same guest had laughed as he swallowed the last mouthful of his drink and declared loudly to the assembly in the bar that he didn’t believe in ghosts. ‘Ghost stories are a load of bullshit,’ he said. He, like many other sceptics who have stayed on the island, is now a convert.

  The ghost walks up to the little hilltop cemetery are very popular with guests. Perhaps after a day spent diving or snorkelling in the emerald waters, paddling across the colourful reef flats that fringe the island or simply basking in the sun on the glorious golden beach a ghost story or (for the lucky one) an actual encounter is the ideal way to round off a perfect day.

  36.

  The Mysteries of Monte Cristo

  Thus she spake and I longed to embrace my mother’s dead ghost. Thrice I tried to clasp her image, and thrice it slipped through my hands, like a shadow, like a dream.

  The Iliad, Homer (Greek poet, 8th Century BC)

  When rich pastoralist and land speculator Christopher Crawley built a stately mansion near the town of Junee NSW in 1884 he called it Monte Cristo — Mount of Christ — but if he hoped the name would protect his home he was mistaken. Dark forces have been at work at Monte Cristo for over a century. The building’s history is marred by strange events that have left a legacy of supernatural activity probably unparalleled in any house standing in Australia today.

  Christopher Crawley died at Monte Cristo in 1910 after a carbuncle on his neck caused by the high, starched collars he wore became infected. His widow, Elizabeth, lived on in the great house for another twenty-three years, leaving it on only two occasions. After her death, family and servants remained for a few years then the house was left unoccupied for a long period. Thieves, vandals and the elements almost destroyed it and then in 1963 it was bought by Reg and Olive Ryan, who took on the enormous task of first making the house habitable for themselves and their young family, then restoring it to its former glory. Reg Ryan says: ‘The day I first saw Monte Cristo I knew without a doubt I would one day live there. I truly believed something supernatural led me to the homestead and that I was somehow meant to be the guardian, keeper and protector of this piece of Australian history that was so nearly lost.’

  If Reg Ryan was led by a supernatural force to Monte Cristo he and his family were unprepared for the barrage of other supernatural events that occurred (and still occur almost daily) in and around this deceptively peaceful-looking old building. Just three days after they moved in the Ryans had their first strange experience. Electricity had not been connected, there was one kerosene lamp, unlit, in the house and not a single pane of glass in any window yet, as they drove back from a brief shopping trip to Junee that evening, they found bright light streaming from every window in the building. Just as mysteriously, the lights disappeared as they drove through the gateway. Many times since, after the Ryans have spent an evening in only one or two lighted rooms at the back of the house, residents of the town have asked them the next morning why their house was ablaze with light the previous night.

  As the years passed and the Ryan’s hard work slowly brought the old house back to life, they endured experiences that would have frightened off less dedicated people. Their attempts to keep pets at Monte Cristo always ended in tragedy. Most animals would not enter the house and those that did went crazy with fear. Others died mysteriously, including a kitten found in the kitchen disembowelled and with its eyes gouged out. Chickens were found with their necks wrung and a pair of caged finches, healthy and chirpy one minute, were dead the next.

  The Ryans soon realised that they shared their home with a whole company of spirits, not all of whom were benign. Perhaps the love and care they lavish on the old house protects them. ‘I have never felt threatened or frightened,’ says Reg, but relatives, boarders, tradespeople and visitors have, many vowing never to return. Mediums who visit the house pick up echoes of tragedy and sorrow and sense the evil that pervades its beautifully furnished rooms and carefully restored outbuildings.

  When you step through the front doorway at Monte Cristo you enter a hallway that runs the length of the house with a staircase leading to the upper floor. Small children often feel distressed for no apparent reason when they approach the stairs and one of the three mediums employed by the ABC during the making of a documentary about Monte C
risto announced that she had a strong feeling that some tragedy had occurred there. Records show that a little girl was dropped by her nanny and fell to her death in the stairwell. The nanny claimed some unseen force had pushed the child from her arms.

  The first door on the left of the hallway is the sitting room, charmingly furnished with period furniture and a piano. The Crawley family also kept a piano in this room. The sound of a piano being played has been heard coming from the sitting room at night when the room is in darkness and apparently empty. Then there’s the drawing room, where a Catholic priest once entered, stopped in his tracks, crossed himself vigorously and backed hastily out. Other people get visibly distressed when they enter the drawing room, one elderly lady crying uncontrollably until she was led from the room — a teacher who visited the house on a school excursion in 2010 reacted the same way. Objects move about mysteriously here; tapestries carefully hung one day are found rolled up against the wall the next and expensive ornaments from the mantelpiece have been found on the floor beside the door.

  In one small bedroom the figure of an old lady dressed in black has been seen by one of the Ryans’ daughters and by another of the three mediums, who described the old lady as standing beside a large silver cross. The reminiscences of a former servant who came forwards after the television documentary was aired revealed that the room had originally been a box room but, after the master’s death, Mrs Crawley had had it converted into a private chapel. The medium was convinced it was the ghost of Elizabeth Crawley he had seen and said that she had ordered him to get out of her house.

  The boys’ bedroom nearby also has an alarming effect on people who enter it. Children put to bed there have difficulty settling and a boarder who slept in the room was found by Reg in the middle of the night standing on his bed shaking with terror and crying out that there was someone or something in his room with him. What frightened the boarder may have been the ghost of a young man in working clothes whose face appears at windows from time to time and whom one of the Ryans’ daughters found standing over the bed in the boys’ room one night, staring down at her small brother, who was sleeping peacefully.