Hotels, pubs and restaurants lead the most haunted list of Australian properties
From five-star hotels to historic pubs, and from tunnels to haunted homesteads, these are the locations with the highest concentration of reported paranormal activity. SEE THE LIST
With Halloween around the corner a leading real estate agency has listed Australia’s most haunted locations with some of the country’s best known hotels, pubs, and restaurants taking up almost a quarter of properties with a link to the otherworldly realm.
Ray White Group senior data analyst Atom Go Tian said the listed 296 haunted locations were manually sourced and mapped by our “resident ghost hunters”.
“While we’ve been as comprehensive as possible, ghosts can be very private, so this is by no means a complete documentation of all haunted locations in Australia,” he said.
“It’s a fun story with Halloween coming but I’ve never seen one (a ghost) myself.”
Of the haunted locations documented, 72 (or 24 per cent) fell in the category of hotels, pubs, and restaurants.
Melbourne’s Hotel Windsor stands as one of the most popular examples. As Australia’s only surviving grand 19th-century city hotel, having been built in 1883, it’s infamous for the ghost of a woman in a lilac gown who appears on the grand staircase who is believed to be the spirit of Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba.
Away from large population centres the North Kapunda Hotel in regional South Australia has the reputation as the most haunted pub in the country and has been the scene for many ghost tours.
In Queensland the venerable Breakfast Creek Hotel at Albion, the Plough Inn at South Brisbane and the Royal Bulls Head in Drayton topped the list of haunted pubs.
Mr Go Tian said 45 residential properties (15 per cent) made the list.
Monte Cristo Homestead in Junee, NSW, often called Australia’s most haunted house, lives up to the reputation. Elizabeth Crawley’s ghost is said to roam the property, where she spent her final 23 years in near-total seclusion after her husband’s death.
The homestead has witnessed multiple tragedies, including a maid who fell from the balcony and a stable boy burned alive, earning its reputation as one of the nation’s most actively haunted sites.
Mr Go Tian said people should not be too concerned though.
“We found that ghosts don’t bother most people anyway. It become more like a spectacle in a way,” he said.
“It seem that in the most part haunted houses affect property prices.”
The report found that public infrastructure held particular appeal for ghost hunters.
Roads, bridges, lighthouses, and stations that serve as sites of tragic deaths or unsolved mysteries offer the perfect combination of accessibility and eerie isolation.
The abandoned Picton Mushroom Tunnel in regional NSW is among these popular locations, where visitors report seeing a girl’s apparition in a white dress, hearing children’s voices, and experiencing equipment malfunctions.
Lemon Tree Passage Road, famous for its motorcycle ghost lights legend, has become so popular that it inspired a 2014 horror film.
“It’s remarkable to think that some locations are so comprehensively haunted that entire towns, camps, and islands earn the reputation,” Mr Go Tian said.
“Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour, Port Arthur in Tasmania, Walhalla in Victoria, and Rottnest Island in Western Australia all fall into this category.
“Thankfully, most Aussie ghosts tend to stick to their dwellings, making this category a rarity.”
Newcastle-Cooks Hill is the most haunted area in Australia, with six reportedly haunted locations within walking distance of each other – Newcastle Civic Theatre, the old Newcastle Police Station, Royal Newcastle Hospital, Newcastle Courthouse, Miss Porter’s House, and the site of KFC’s first Newcastle branch.
This concentration likely stems from Newcastle being Australia’s second-oldest city behind Sydney, with much of its historic infrastructure still standing.
The inner cities of Brisbane and Adelaide follow with five haunted locations each, again featuring high densities of old buildings with rich histories.
“Both cities’ Town Halls are reportedly haunted, with phantom music, shadow figures, and sounds of non-existent construction curiously common to both.
Interestingly, with the exception of Meekatharra in regional WA, these haunted hotspots have house prices at the upper end of the market.
“Newcastle isn’t just the most haunted, it’s also the most expensive on our list, with typical house prices of $11.2m,” Mr Go Tian said.
“The range outside of these two spans from $1.46m in Rockhampton City to $7.95m in Brisbane City.
“Once again, our ghosts appear to prefer being where we are.”
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