Our Night In a Haunted Orphanage

23rd July, 2011

St John's Orphanage, Goulburn NSW

For my birthday this year I wanted to do something different so on Saturday night, James and I joined a team of paranormal investigators on an overnight investigation at St John's Orphanage in Goulburn. We left home around 4:30pm and after stopping for fuel etc we set off to Goulburn via Oberon.

We had an eventful but good trip down the back road from Oberon to Goulburn. It was raining lightly in the mountains until we descended down the range to Hartley. The sky started clearing as we came into Oberon and as we drove along the mountain ridges we saw a magnificent sunset. The horizon was covered in a thick band of cloud topped by deep crimsons and glorious golds blending into the dusky blues of the night sky.

I really needed to go to the toilet when we got to Oberon but unfortunately the public toilet was closed so had to keep going for another hour until we reached the next town where we found a toilet open in the park.

Along the way we came across two kangaroos on the road, but slowed down as we approached but not too much because the one on the right lane turned and jumped towards the side of our car. After that we then encountered two sheep leading two cute little lambs across the road, once again slowed in time to miss them. Then further on, I saw a pair of glowing eyes crossing the road, when we caught up with them they were attached to a fox disappearing into the bush.

We got to Goulburn at 8pm and after stopping at KFC for some hot chips, we then got to the orphanage and parked nearby under a street light to eat our cold chicken and hot chips for dinner. Afterwards we drove outside the main entrance to the orphanage where we parked. As we were collecting all our gear, one of the staff from the investigation came out to help us.

Just inside the entrance to the grounds was the base camp for the night's investigation. The first thing to greet us was a group of people sitting around a large welcoming wood fire which was kept going all throughout the night. Nearby a marque and a table was set up where we could help ourselves to refreshments during the night. In this regard, we were spoilt for choice, as there was a good range of hot and cold beverages plus hot soup and rolls. We also had plenty of yummy cakes and slices and then late into the night a large bowl chocolates went around to boost our energy supplies.

The night started with Louise the event organiser, taking us on an orientation tour inside the huge two and a half storey complex. The layout inside was very complex and confusing and you could easily get lost. There were lots of long winding corridors with rooms leading off on either side. Plus they had a lot of rooms leading into other rooms as well. The upper levels were accessed by two main staircases at each end and then several smaller staircases as well. Outside the back courtyard we were shown a couple of separate buildings one of which was the hospital.

There was a lot of grafitti and vandalism in the few rooms near the entrance of the building but none going further into the building (vandals have never been a very brave sort of breed).

Once we were back at base came, we were divided into 3 groups and each group was allocated a different section of the complex to investigate. Each group was given a section to explore for a 2 hour period followed by a half hour break to recoup before moving on to a different section.

We had one of the group's volunteer's investigator, Craig, leading our team which consisted of just James, myself and one other guy.

We got to learn how to use some of the equipment and try it out for ourselves. The tuning rods were the coolest and they really creeped James out when they moved a lot when he was holding them.

You can really feel the electrical energy running down the copper rod into your hands when a spirit is moving the rods. There is no way to fake the rods' movement without people noticing.

Some parts of the orphanage were more intense than others, especially the rooms where the children lived.

In particular the boy's bathroom (left) in one of the cubicles I saw a small bright light move across the back wall and disappear through the side wall. I gasped out loud so then I had to explain to those around me what I saw, unfortunately no one else saw it.

 One of the main staircases where a couple of people have claimed to have been pushed down by an unseen force.

 The chapel inside the orphanage with it's beautiful archway and bay windows.

There is a shelf in one of the rooms that has several sets of small child-like fingerprints on it which apparently mysteriously appeared during one of the first investigations. The shelf was clear at the beginning of the night and then someone noticed them appear sometime during the evening.

People have since tried to replicate the prints but without success. The shelf is covered in years of grease and dust and if you try to make a fingerprint it comes out blurry around the edges, whereas you can see that the original prints are distinct and have sharp edges.

The most puzzling occurrance for me was when I was taking photos. Every now and then when I went to take a photo and pushed the button halfway down to set the focus, I saw a black shadow on the LCD view screen and then when I took the photo there was nothing there. This happened several times until I got some other people to take a look and they too saw the shadow. It showed up in different locations and only at certain spots, so I don't think it was my camera. I did finally manage to get the shadow on my photo when the flash wouldn't work. I took lots of photos without the flash but this is the only one which had a shadow. Here it is below, you can form your own opinion as to what you think it represents....

I took this photo when the flash didn't work

Then this photo was taken a few seconds later but this time the flash did work but no shadow...

 I'm not sure I believe that orbs are anything paranormal or just reflected light from dust or water particles but a couple I took look like something different, I just don't know what to think, except it makes for some interesting speculation...

 I took two photos, the first had what looked like a white orb on the far end wall, take a look at the closeup below....

The other strange images I got were outside after the investigation was over. In the first photo below, loot at the far end window, there appears like a black shape looking in the window, the closeup shows a slightly clearer image. Then in the second photo, the shape seems to be disappearing slightly upwards (again the closeup gives a better view). I don't claim it is something paranormal, just something to ponder about....

The next series of shots takes in the area around this same doorway except from the front of the building below the porch. First I thought some blades of long grass were glowing in the dark, then after taking a few more shots I noticed that the glowing grass image had moved across from being directly under the doorway to being slightly right of the doorway and there also appeared, directly under the doorway, what looked like a nun in a black habit bending her head in prayer with tiny lights on her.

 This is the photo without closeup, the doorway is the one facing onto the porch just under where the upper white section of the building ends.

The image is directly under the white beam in front of the bush...

This one was taken seconds later, you can see the first image has moved slightly right and under the beam you can see what looks to be a nun praying with two lights on her left.

Then in the next two photos I caught some mist in one shot and in the second shot the mist had disappeared.

Then in the next photo I caught this white light in front of an upper window, it maybe just a speck of dust or something else...

I have to say that overall the night was great fun, spending time in a haunted building, meeting lots of interesting people and plenty of discussions about different theories about the paranormal and hearing people's different points of view.

I didn't expect to see a ghost but I did experience a few unexplained phenomena during the evening, a couple of which I have already mentioned. A couple of others included seeing a shadow on top of one of the staircases at the same time as one of the other people also saw a shadow.  Feeling sick in the tummy on the same spot as a couple of other people experienced feelings of nausea. Some other people also heard voices and footsteps and one girl had the feeling as if someone was tugging on her coat.

Of course, like any serious investigation, this night's events don't carry any weight towards being recorded as real evidence, it takes collecting a lot of data over a series of investigations and correlating people's shared experiences before any claims can be made that genuine paranormal activity took place.

I am looking forward to going back and taking part in another investigation when the next event is on just to conduct a few experiments of my own.

Well here's to happy ghost hunting.

Regards,

Jim & Marieanne

A Breath of Fresh Ayre - Day 10

Day 10 Monday 20th June 2011

Today is our 18th wedding anniversary, I really can’t believe we’ve been married that long, it doesn't feel like it has. We had bacon and eggs as our special anniversary breakfast.

I gave James his anniversary card and present which was an engraved brass Celtic bookmark that I bought from a shop in Ireland. I wanted something that was small enough to carry on our trip and that James wouldn’t find.

James gave me a beautiful card but my present is waiting at Cowell at the Jade factory where I’m picking out a piece of jewellery made from local jade. Cowell on the south east coast of the Eyre Peninsula is the only place in Australia that produces jade, and before my research for this trip, I didn't even know we had any jade.

James drove and I was the tour director for today. We drove north to Wudinna to visit a few local granite landforms similar to Ayers Rock except a bit smaller. Wudinna is on the Eyre highway about 80 kilometres north. We passed through there on the way to the Nullarbor but didn’t stop as we wanted to save it until now.

The first rock we visited was Polda Rocks about 7 kilometres north of the town. There is a picnic area and a small dam with water in it as well. It was quite windy when we climbed the rock with the dogs.

It wasn’t steep and trust us to take the longest side to climb which we didn’t realise until we were coming down again. The only animal we saw apart from the birds was a large black spider with a red mark on its back but it wasn’t a redback. It kept crawling towards me when I was trying to take its photo. I had to keep backing away and refocusing the camera as it was moving so fast.

The next rock we visited was Mt Wudinna about 5 kilometres further along. This was a massive rock and is 260 metres high and covers an area of about 112 hectares.

The walking trail took us up one side of the rock

 Looking up from about halfway up.

I was nervous looking down where I had just climbed as it was a steep drop. The climb itself wasn’t that challenging except it was a bit scary, especially when you turned around and looked down and saw how far you’d climbed.

At the summit, we had magnificent 360° views of the area including the Gawler Ranges to the north.

 James at the summit which was extremely windy making it hard to stand still long enough to take photos, but as you can see we managed.

 Our path downwards hopefully somewhere ahead.

The dogs coped really well having four short legs. The real challenge was finding a way down again as after we followed the trail across and down the rock, the path died out and we had to guess which way to go. There was no question of going back down the way we climbed as it was too steep.

As we climbed down we spotted what we thought was either an emu or a kangaroo in the open paddock next to the park. I zoomed in with my camera as far as I could go and took a picture so that we could see what it was later on the computer. It turned out to be a kangaroo, the first live one we’ve seen on this trip so far.

 We saw some very interesting rock formations during our climb.

Eventually, we found our way down and just in good time as I needed to go to the toilet.

After leaving Mt Wudinna we made one more stop before going back to Wudinna. We had to go through someone's property to get to the landmark known as Pygery's Rock. It wasn't as impressive as the others but interesting to view and from the top which we could drive to, we had great panoramic views over the landscape for many kilometres around.

 This is a close up of an interesting rock formation we saw at Pygery Rock.

We don't know why the rock was called by this name except we passed by a large concrete constructed water trough about 7 metres deep by 7 metres wide and approx. 20 metres long. We theorised that there may have been a pig farm onsite during the pioneering days as evidenced by the spelling of the word "pig".

At the entrance to Wudinna township is an 8 metre statue symbolising an Australian Farmer that was erected to acknowledge the commitment and spirit of rural people of the area. It took two years to create and is made from local granite blocks weighing a total of 400 tonnes.

Next on our agenda was Ucontitchie Hill 32 kilometres south of Wudinna. Don’t ask me how to pronounce it though.

When we arrived at the carpark to the rock we had to sit in the car and eat our lunch because there wasn’t any picnic facilities and it was still quite windy.

 This was the only rock we couldn't climb, instead the walking track led around the base.

We started off along the trail that led around the base of the massive rock, taking lots of pictures as we went.

There was also a dust storm moving pass which was impressive because it was like a red fog covering the landscape. Unfortunately, this photo doesn't do it justice.

 As we made our way around, we saw many fabulous rock formations. They impressed us so much that we couldn't stop ourselves from taking lots of photos. Here is just one sample.

 About half way round the trail died completely and we had to make our own path through the bush blindly. We spent about half an hour climbing up and down gullies, passing through thick overgrown vegetation and over rocks and fallen trees until we came out near a neighbouring farm. I knew we were heading in the right direction from having read the map on a sign near the entrance to the track.

We then had to get through a wooded area which brought us out by a wave rock before reaching the carpark again.

We were supposed to pay $2 entry fee and place the money in an honesty box which was inside an old fridge at the carpark.

We didn’t leave any money because we felt that if they were going to charge money they should at least upkeep the walking trails so that people visiting wouldn’t get lost trying to find their way around. Altogether, we had a great time looking at the different features of this beautiful landmark.

On the drive back to camp we were attacked by tumbleweed that was blown across the road by the wind.

The dust storm was still blowing across the fields and in one spot we saw a mini whirlwind dance across a bare paddock for a few seconds before collapsing.

We also saw a skink (lizard) out braving the wind and dust storm. He was crawling across the road so we stopped to take a photo. 

It wasn't hard to understand why we ended up having an early night after all the climbing over rocks and such. We were nice and warm inside our camper as we had the gas heater on. Later on during the night after we went to bed, we could hear the wind howling outside. It was very strong making it hard to sleep with the canvas flapping on all sides of the tent. We also had a few heavy showers of rain during the night. It seemed colder tonight as well but we were warm and snug in our beds.