Five Years of the Haunts of Adelaide: History, Mystery and the Paranormal

Five Years of the Haunts of Adelaide: History, Mystery and the Paranormal

 

The Haunts of Adelaide: History, Mystery and the Paranormal turns 5 years old this week!

When I first started writing this blog back in 2012, I never foresaw myself writing it for 5 years! 

At the end of 2016, I had a little hiatus from writing, due to a number of other project taking up my time, but I returned at the beginning of 2017, and despite paranormal investigation, writing for MEGAscene, writing for the Kapunda History and Eidolon Paranormal blogs, working on the Developing the Ghosts & Ghouls Tour with Adelaide City Libraries, and studying two diplomas, I somehow found the time to keep this blog running…I’m not sure how I did it...passion, dedication, sheer determination, a love of history and writing? 

I’m not really sure myself, but here I am 5 years later still writing!

 So, I hope someone is still reading! (actually, I know exactly how many people read each story, Blogger tells me, and so far the most read story is this one: http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com.au/2016/07/muzyk-murder.html with just under 20, 000 reads).

On average the blog gets about 4000 reads a month, which isn’t bad I guess for a collection of South Australian based stories.

The audience is made of predominately readers in Australia. Outside of Australia, the top 10 list of reading countries where readers live, is as follows:  United States, Russia, Ukraine, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Canada, Poland and lastly India and China.

 The blog has led to many great discoveries, and some invitations, including it being archived by the National Library of Australia, and a recent invitation by Trove to write a guest blog – which is an amazing honour in my eyes, as Trove is probably the website I visit most outside of social media websites!

I do have future plans for the blog, which include going through and editing spelling and grammar errors from earlier posts, and adding the correct citations to photos and writings, but that will need to wait until my workload decreases just a little, as its just a little too much work right now!

Here are the top five most read blogs on the Haunts of Adelaide:

1. Muzyk Murders - http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com.au/2016/07/muzyk-murder.html

2. The Ghosts of Gawler: Part 6: Para-Para - http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/para-para-ghosts-of-gawler-part-6.html

3. Woodhouse Activity Center -  http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/woodhouse-activity-centre.html

4. Dead Man’s Pass – The Ghosts of Gawler: Part 2 - http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/dead-mans-pass-ghosts-of-gawler-part-two.html

5.  Carclew House, Montefiore Hill,  “Sinister by Design” Part Two- http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/carclew-house-montefiore-hill-sinister.html

The least read blog surprised me a little bit, it’s a recent blog, so it’s numbers will most likely go up as its discovered, but as it sits at the moment  this is the least read blog post on the Haunts of Adelaide: http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com.au/2017/09/sir-arthur-conan-doyle-in-adelaide-part.html

I’d just like to say thank you to each and everyone one of you that takes the time to read my blog. I doubt I’ll still be writing it in another 5 years – but who knows!

Here’s to 5 years of The Haunts of Adelaide!

Thanks – Allen Tiller

Haunted Adelaide & The Haunts of Adelaide's 4th Birthday!

The Haunts of Adelaide and the “Haunted Adelaide” blog celebrates 4 years this week on the 22^nd of October 2016.

Every week I have presented a historical story, fact, ghost story, murder story or mystery from South Australia. The blog has seen dramatic rises in reader rates over the past couple of years, particularly stories about the towns of Gawler and Kapunda.

photo by James Levett Photography

In the past four years I have been approached and interviewed by various media outlets in Adelaide looking for information on murders, hauntings and other notable “dark history” content, most recently it was The Advertiser, who approached me for comment about ghosts in Rundle Mall for their “40-year anniversary special”. It is always a privilege to be able to share my research with such respected journalists and a wider audience.

 

 Two years ago I published my first book, The Haunts of Adelaide: History Mystery and the Paranormal, which can now be found in libraries across Australia, but also still available online or from Dymocks in Rundle Mall. 

Earlier this year, I spent four months working with the Adelaide City Council researching and investigating the history of ghosts and hauntings in the Council catchment, this project was incredibly popular, and a world first Government engagement of its kind!
 I would very much like to thank all the wonderful people who came in to share stories, City Library and North Adelaide Library,
 My research work from that particular project can be found on the Adelaide City Council Libraries History Hub collections under the “Allen Tiller Collection” – there is more to come soon!

 This particular project led to, what has been my highlight of the year so far, being nominated for the “Emerging Historian of the Year” category in the annual History Council of South Australia’s history awards, a big thank you to Katherine Shaw for nominating myself and the Haunted Buildings in Adelaide Project”.

 The Haunted Buildings in Adelaide project has led to a new project, this time for the Port Adelaide Enfield Council, researching number of their haunted buildings for a special Halloween release!

 

 In the mean time I am working on a number of other project behind the scenes, including a follow up book to the Haunts of Adelaide, this one is taking much longer than anticipated as new research avenues have opened up to me, and through them, I am able to provide a much more concise view of the history surrounding hauntings in some of South Australia’s most notorious hauntings...this book will also feature a number of “True Stories” never before heard by the South Australian public.
If you liked my first book, I am sure you’ll enjoy this one much much more! 

It has been an enormous year for Haunted Adelaide, and The Haunts of Adelaide, hopefully I can keep the momentum going and write more interesting and entertaining blogs for you all to read and explore the alternative history of South Australia, until next time…

Happy Hauntings :)

Allen Tiller

www.allentiller.com.au

One Year of The Haunts of Adelaide

One Year of The Haunts of Adelaide

Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of this blog “The Haunts of Adelaide”, and our long standing look into Adelaide (and South Australia's) History, Mystery and the Paranormal.

What a year it has been, for the blog, and for me personally.

The inspiration for this blog came from a few sources, one including my friend Liam at The Haunts of Brisbane. I had long thought about writing a blog on the History of Adelaide, with a slant towards mysteries, paranormal events and the darker side of Adelaide, with a little push from Liam, the blog was born. (thank you Liam!! :) )

Early on an employee of the State Library of South Australia took an interest in the research and stories I was exploring, and put the blog forward for the National Library of Australia's “Pandora “ Archive.

“PANDORA is a digital archive dedicated to the preservation of and long term access to Australian online electronic publications of national significance.” - from the Pandora website www.pandora.nla.gov.au” 

This inclusion was a huge, an unexpected, honour for me, and was the second inclusion of my teams work, with the Eidolon Paranormal website at www.eidolonparanormal.net being included in the Pandora Archive back in 2011.

Also this year, I went away to film a television show, “Haunting: Australia”, where I got to investigate alongside two friends Gaurav Tiwari from Indian Paranormal Society and Robb Demarest from Ghost Hunters International, as well as some new friends, Ian Lawman from Most Haunted, Rayleen Kable from Psychic TV, and the one and only Ray Jorden, from The Paranormal 5.

The cast of Haunting: Australia

We had some great adventures, and caught some great evidence...you'll have to watch the show when it comes out to see where we went and what we gathered...It was an amazing, eye opening experience to be involved in something like this.

TV was never a goal of mine (I was always more interested in making documentaries), but who would say no to Robb??

I can tell you I learnt a great deal from working with the cast, and also a great deal from the crew (looking at you Mick Eady ;) )! So all round it was a vast learning experience that will add new ideas to how I approach my own videos in the future, and how I approach our own paranormal investigations

Back to writing, Whilst the Eidolon blog takes a little break while I freshen it up a little, The Haunts of Adelaide will keep pressing forward, there is so much history in Adelaide, a lot of it untouched, forgotten or distorted from the facts, the blog could go on for years!

Also this year I got married. Yes it should probably be further up the page, but this post is supposed to be about the blog, not me...but

then, I write the blog, so I guess the blog, in some ways, is about me? Right?
 Anyhoo, I would like to thank my lovely Wife, Karen (who I met in a cemetery – and no she isn't dead!) for putting up with me as I research, explore and write, sometimes well into the wee hours, when I could be spending more time with her – Without Karens unending support and tolerance, this blog probably wouldn't have survived its first month!!

I would also like to thank each and every one of you who takes a little bite out of your day once a week to read my humble little blog, I hope it brings back memories for some, teaches others, inspires yet others, to investigate and research themselves, but most of all I hope you, the reader, enjoy the journey of discovering Adelaide, and South Australia's past with me.

Thank you for reading The Haunts of Adelaide

- Allen Tiller