Hinkler Central ghost stories prompts locals to share encounters with paranormal

Some people have to travel to abandoned homesteads or visit old jails to experience paranormal activity. In Bundaberg, the locals only have to pop into town. We explore the ghostly encounters and a possible explanation for their existence in the CBD.

Bundaberg’s CBD is a vibrant hub of activity seven days a week.

And, if you ask the locals, it’s also a vibrant hub for paranormal happenings too.

Recently, a former cleaner at Hinkler Central came forward to share his stories of strange happenings in the shopping mall.

Michael Cavanagh told the NewsMail of a number of different spirits that have been seen and felt in the CBD mall.

One, is a lady in white. Another is a young boy who plays on the escalator. Then there’s the mischievous shadow figure and the items that move about on their own.

His recollection of events led to hundreds of comments on social media and locals telling their own chilling tales.

Hinkler Central shopping mall, Bundaberg.

Items moving themselves and other strange encounters

One reader said they know of one local who won’t shop at Hinkler Central because of the feeling she gets when she’s there.

Other staff members say they've seen things flying off the shelves in their stores.

Gaydee Nixon said she saw something truly odd outside the Reject Shop.

“Saw something very unusual there... when I looked at the glass when a mother and child walked past, they looked forward, but the reflection was looking at me,” she said.

“Cold chills I got, so I left the place.”

Bronwyn Meredith shared the same experience with many others who say they've seen items move on their own or fall off shelves.

“Now I know why everything falls off the shelves when I'm there,” she said.

A number of other former Hinkler Central cleaners also came forward to say the claims were all true.

“Can say it myself,” Taylor Shane wrote, adding that he would not go there after-hours.

Others confirmed they do had seen both the shadow figure and the lady in white.

The block of Bundaberg's CBD that once played host to the city's cemetery.

A city that expanded further than early settlers had planned

Very few people would realise as they go about their business in the CBD that some areas were once burial sites.

According to Bundaberg Regional Library documents, early settlers did not expect the city centre to grow as much as it did.

So the original cemetery was on the block bordered by Woondooma, Woongarra, Maryborough and McLean Sts.

It is unknown how many people were buried in the area, but in 1873 it suddenly came apparent just how badly plans needed to change.

An elderly man had died, and reports at the time listed that he would be getting buried “almost in the middle of town”.

By the late 1870s, locals had become highly critical of the cemetery in the heart of town and in the 1880s the council started a tendering process for the removal and relocation of bodies from the city.

In 1882, the bodies had all been relocated to the newer cemetery grounds.

A two-storey home was built over the original site, which now houses the shops across the road from the old Blockbuster building.

Have you had an eerie encounter in the Bundaberg CBD? Email [e-mail]