The Tantanoola Tiger

In the 1880s, South-East South Australia was overrun with speculation about what could be killing so many sheep in the area. Reports of a mysterious predator with stripes on its back began to be filed with local police. Rumour had it a large Bengal Tiger was on the loose, and soon fear spread that the wild beast may soon kill a human. By 1893, reports were so common that they started to make it into local newspapers.


The Advertiser reported in 1895,

“The tiger is reported to have been seen again at Tantanoola.

An employee of Mr Wehl who was out hunting last week reported that he had seen a strange animal, but was some distance off and did not care to make a closer acquaintance. He, however, sent his dogs forward and says they returned in great fright.

He then proceeded homeward, believing that discretion is better than valour when an unknown danger is ahead.”

In August 1895, Thomas John Donovan managed to shoot and kill a beast thought to be the predator big cat. The animal upon closer inspection, appeared not to be a Bengal Tiger but resembled something closer to Tasmania's Thylacines.
The animal was inspected by a zoologist and was determined to be a wolf. This led to a lot of speculation about why, and how, an Assyrian Wolf came to be hunting in South Australia. It is thought the wolf may have been a passenger upon a ship that wrecked off the coastline of Robe many years earlier.  The wolf, somewhat of a trophy, became legend – it was duly stuffed and put on display in the Tantanoola Hotel, alongside the gun used to shoot it.

 

 

The mysterious Tantanoola Tiger was dead, but sheep in the district were still going missing. This mystery was solved however when the culprit was found. A local man, Charlie Edmondson was caught red-handed stealing 78 sheep, and upon arrest admitted to stealing over 4000 more!
You can see the Tantanoola Tiger in the Tantanoola Hotel in South Australia's South East at 265 Railway Terrace East.

Ghost Trains: Saddleworth, Hawker, Marree.

Saddleworth Ghost Train:

Many years ago, the Saddleworth train station was a busy railway facility in the mid-north of South Australia. A transport hub for wheat and other grain to travel by train interstate, or to Port for international shipments.

As time went by, the station saw less and trains stopped, and eventually, the station became abandoned. It stood abandoned for many many years, visited only by graffiti vandals, Trainspotters...and a resident ghost.

Many people reported seeing strange glowing lights coming from the old station. They seemed to emanate from within the building, but upon closer inspection by witnesses, they would vanish into thin air. With no living soul present, in the building upon inspection, one has to wonder what the lights were – unfortunately, in 2011, the local government took it upon themselves to allow the demolition of the train station... the station is now a memory, as are its ghosts.

Hawker Ghost Train: 

At Hawker, about 365 km north of Adelaide, people report hearing the blare of an old train horn, and the clicking of tracks as an invisible train flies by...the really strange thing is, the tracks were pulled up years ago!

Marree Train Station Ghost: 

Further north (over 600kms from Adelaide ) sits the Marree Train Station. The small town, home to Australia's first Mosque, is very remote and has a population of fewer than 60 people. The train station, long abandoned, features old trains, husks of their former selves.

It has long been reported that the train station is haunted, with people hearing phantom footsteps that shadow their own. A man, possibly a train driver, is sometimes seen in one of the old trains, that sit rusting in the harsh environment.

Have you visited any of these locations and seen a ghost...please visit us on Facebook and tell us your story!

https://www.facebook.com/TheHauntsOfAdelaide
© 2015 - Allen Tiller

Ghosts of the Barossa: The Ghost Dogs of Moculta

The Ghost Dogs of Moculta

  In the late 1800s, a young man working in the Barossa Valley as a delivery boy experienced a terrifying event.

While travelling from the Commercial Hotel in Angaston (known as “The Brauhaus” since 1979.) towards Moculta, the young man crossed a small bridge over the North Para River. He slowed down and looked towards an old copper mine shaft on the property of Mr J.B. Bartsch.

  From the mine shaft, a drive had been cut to the bottom of the valley, which passed under the bridge he had just travelled over. The young man sat silently on his carriage, staring toward the mine shaft.

Suddenly his horse's ears pricked up and the horses began to snort. They began to rear in fear as loud thumping sounds, grunting, snarling and the sound of metal upon rock filled the gully air.

  Out of nowhere, in broad daylight, two large dogs appeared. Both dogs had blazing red eyes and attached to their collars, large chains that whipped from side to side as they jumped up towards the cart. The dogs barked ferociously, snarling and gnashing their frothing mouths at the horses.

The young man, caught in a daze of disbelief, suddenly sprang into action and whipped at his horses to move forward. As they did, the dogs jumped on to the almost empty delivery cart, which suddenly slowed down to a crawl as the horses struggled with the extra, supernatural weight of the dogs.
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The dogs, still making maddening noises, the chains still clinking as they whipped about, suddenly leapt off the cart, which took off with a jolt, as the extra weight lifted from it.

The young man whipped the horses to travel as far as he could from the bridge back to his home in Moculta. Panicking, adrenaline coursing through his veins, fear-filled his entire being. 

He had no explanation for his experience and remained unsure if the dogs were indeed ghosts, or mighty beasts that had broken their chains and become feral – either way, he found another route for his deliveries after his experience.

Have you experienced the ghost dogs of Moculta in the Barossa Valley? Let us know via the forums on Facebook.

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2015
The Haunts of Adelaide

Uley Road Cemetery & Chapel

  Uleybury was established in the late 1840s by Moses Bendle Garlick. Garlick had migrated to Australia from Gloucestershire England in 1837. Garlick was a weaver and Lay-Preacher. Uleybury was chosen as the area's name because the district's hills reminded Garlick of his home in Cotswold. 'Uley' was Garlicks home village and 'Bury' was the term used in that region for a tree-covered hill.

 In 1841, Garlick paid 400 pounds to have a small chapel built on an acre of land he had set aside. The Uleybury Baptist Church was the first Baptist Church in South Australia built outside of Adelaide and served the local community for many decades.

 In the 1970s, the now-abandoned chapel started to attract teenagers in the area looking for a cheap scare. At that stage, the area had no dwellings nearby and was rather remote, quiet and spooky.  Along with the teenagers came vandalism, and the chapel and many graves in the cemetery were badly vandalised, with many disappearing altogether.

 On March 10, 1981, the local council stepped in and demolished the old chapel. The stone walls that now surround the cemetery were built from the stones of the original chapel. A memorial plaque marking the event was placed at the front gate.

 The ghost stories of the area were well entrenched by the 1970s, many of which emerged two decades before in the 1950s.

 In 1953, The Bunyip newspaper, in Gawler, printed a story told by Frank Ifould.

Franks tells the story of a man who worked for his father. A man who enjoyed drinking alcohol every day. On the day's Frank's, dad went into town, the worker hit the bottle harder, often getting exceptionally drunk. One evening, another worker decided he would scare the drunk man and dressed in a white sheet. Ha waited patiently for the drunk to appear, and jumped out, scaring the drunk. The drunk, in his stupor, believed it was a real ghost, and told his story to whoever would listen.

 The story of the ghost eventually spread, and as it spread the story grew, until it started to include headless horsemen and ghastly coaches eerily cruising past the cemetery. From that moment onwards, the crossroads, just a little further up from the cemetery has been known as “Ghost Corner”.

 This proves that the alleged haunting of Uley Road Chapel and Cemetery is nothing new.  There are ghost multiple stories now, but some of them are eerily similar to the original story. Today there are stories of a girl in a wedding dress who runs out onto the road screaming, another girl who steps out in front of your car, dressed in white, she screams as your car hits her and disappears into the ether.

 There are stories of shadow people, stone-throwing ghosts, and some local legends of satanic rituals happening in the 1970s – this all adds to the myths and legends of the location - which is still a popular place in South Australia to ghost hunt or scare people.

 I have visited the cemetery many times, and on a couple of occasions come across some weird behaviours. One of them being giant circles made out of stones in the top left corner of the cemetery – the photos below were taken in 2010