Day 79 - Friday 17 March - Happy St Pats and busting for ghosts

Day 79

Friday

17 March 2017 – St Patricks Day

Ararat – Avoca

Top of the morning to ya!

We wondered where we would be for St Pat’s day celebrations and here we are in Ararat, waking up next to the lovely Green Hill Lake and it is all free. We used the free showers with concrete floors and a single spring-loaded tap that spits out warm water. Despite its primitiveness it did the job.

When we had completed our wash and feed we moved the van to a different spot recommended by Robbo, here there were less people and we opened our door onto the lake. A great spot. They are expecting more in over the weekend because of the Jail House Rock festival so we wanted to get away from the area likely to be busy. During last weekend’s long weekend they had 170 vans parked out here, hopefully it wont be that many this time around.

We did a wander of our surrounds, crossing the small footbridge and walking the island before finding the toilet block at this end of the camp, no warm showers at this one. We stopped to talk to a few other campers before loading the car and heading 45min north-east to Avoca. We had been told about the Hotel by Robbo stating it had over 100 beers on offer, of course this conversation had piqued Paul’s interest so today seemed like a good day to check it out.

We pulled into the main street and rather than rushing straight to the pub, we took our time wandering around and seeing what the town had to offer. It is much like many of the other country towns, old buildings, war memorials and the pub. Avoca also has a Chinese feature garden that we had a wander around before eventually making our way into the Avoca Hotel.

Being St Pat’s day the first beer had to be a Guinness and while that was being enjoyed Paul perused the beer list that comes in a file! Turns out they have over 200 beers on offer. It was going to be a long day. I could hear the brain ticking over as he read the list, turned the page and read the list again and again. In the end two beers were chosen from the Red Duck Brewery in Ballarat, a Big Licky Stout and a Tiger Cino, both specialty beers and the Tiger was the very last bottle in the world. He finished with a Californian Beer from Golden Road a Back Home Gingerbread Stout. The way he was chewing it you would think he was devouring a gingerbread house not a beer. The meals were also top notch and it was a great way to celebrate St Pat’s.

With the strong beers under his belt, the keys were handed to me and I navigated us back to Ararat, stopping at the bottle-o for Kilkenny and then we drove to Pyrennes House, the old hospital. The building is just beautiful and we enjoyed checking out the architecture and talking to a health worker, who also pointed out the mountain range behind us, letting us know the locals call it “Sleeping Beauty” or “Pregnant Woman”. She also let us know that the town of Ararat was the back drop for the biggest loser series when they went into Australia’s Obesest town. So there you go.

We made our way up the street to J Ward where we were having our ghost tour later and checked out the old blue stone building with the massive gates. Luckily for us the gate was open so we snuck in and did a quick check before coming back out to the street. We spoke to another bloke who just happened to be our tour guide for later on and he let us in to take a look around and take a few photos as I figured coming back at night I wouldn’t see as much. He was great, telling us a few tales.

We took our pics and then headed on into the Alexandra Gardens across the road and walked around the perimeter admiring the lake, plants and fountains then it was back to the car and out to the van.

We rested up, still feeling full from the lunch. I went through the pics and then sat outside enjoying the glorious weather. Paul sat by the lake fishing and reading. It would have been idyllic had it not been for the low thrum of the generator powering up our battery bank.

We did a walk, meeting people along the way and then returned to the van to quickly scoff a bite before we drove into town, back to the old gaol to compete the Ghost tour of J Ward.

J Ward was an extension of the hospital down the road. After the high security gaol was disbanded after the gold rush the hospital needed a ward to house the criminally insane and the gaol, with its high blue stonewalls, was perfect for the job.

We joined our tour of 12 and our guide who we had met earlier and checked out a small museum before watching a short documentary shot in the 70’s for ABC with Mike Willesse as the presenter. The DVD was a real eye opener and had me cringing and feeling sad for the desperates locked away here. Following this, the group members were given a selection of Electo Magnetic field detectors, temperature gauges and sound enhancing headphone in readiness for doing some ghost busting. I didn’t realise the Ghost Tour was and actual look out for paranormal activity “Ghost Tour”. I had an EMF to keep an eye on the underworld goings on.

We made our way to the front and began snapping away listening to the stories before heading inside. We were told to stay with our backs to the wall as a ghost likes to walk the halls and doesn’t mind crossing through people. The guide began calling for the spirits but nothing was picked up.

We moved on to the mortuary where I had to lay on the mortuary table and scream, to try and call them in. It was a bit freaky really but again nothing happened.

We wandered into the new cellblock, which reminded us of Fremantle prison. Upstairs we could walk in and out of the cells, they were a bit eerie too and it didn’t help that dummies had been placed in them. Scared the poop out of Paul.

We checked the hangmans noose and trap door. Three prisoners were hung in the prison with their bodies buried in the grounds.

We were told about Gary Webb who was housed here in 1995 and just took chunks off of  himself so he could be out of the cell for a time while being fixed up at the hospital. He then began digesting knives and other sharps. Numerous times these had to be surgically removed, until eventually he did too good a job,  had the knife removed was sewn up and then proceeded to undo his stitches with a biro and disemboweled himself when the guard took a break. He also successfully escaped from his prison cell after hiding a toothbrush on his naked body he used it to dig out the lime sand mortar, pop into the empty, open cell next door, up the stairs, dug out the lime sand mortar of the top wall and climbed out onto the roof; all in 20min. He got no further and came back in two days later, still naked, cold and starving. This all happened when the staff were on strike and a local church group was volunteering in the asylum. Ahh.

We entered the little chapel and as before all lights off, sat at the pews and the guide read a verse from the bible before calling in the spirits again. I was sitting in, what the call, “Sheldon’s Spot” and was told to expect to be sat on, but didn’t notice anything again.

We moved to the exercise yard and had the burial spots pointed out of the hung prisoners. This was the background of the doco and really made me think about their conditions. From here we went through the kitchen garden and into the old kitchen. They know of three ghosts in this area but none were visiting today despite being called and cajoled.

Finally we moved into the old bathroom used by the original warden. This was a poky little room and really gave me the heebee jeebees. The walls were blackened as it was used as a smoking room after this. The guide refused to come in to this room, so I was keen to escape also. Turns out six prisoners were butchered in the room and their ghosts along with the butcher reside there and he is said to be one demonic beast.

We climbed the well-worn stone staircase and returned to the tv room, our tour over. We said our farewells and headed back to the van for 10pm. A quick snack and then it was time for bed.