Be careful if you wander around the area at night. An extract from hat letter appears in a story about her life. Mother Mary herself refers to this in a letter to one of her Sisters. Back when Mother Mary McKillop first established the Reformatory, it was already known to be haunted. The Reformatory remains 'home' to many ghosts, not just Ruby or Fr John Martin. Investigation into the Reformatory have continued well past the time of the Channel 9 documentary with Warwick, though he remains marginally involved. She is however, buried close to that end area of the Cemetery. It was 'discovered' as part of the Catholic Churches attempt to cover-up the issues which remain there. The place was closed the day after her death and all the girls either sent into Service or transported to Redruth Gaol. Ruby died in Kapunda Hospital as a result of events at St Johns. Vera was wrongly identified in an early book called 'Ghosts of the Barossa". Fun!ĭanny Boy - the girl ghost you refer to is Ruby Olive Murray Bland. Lyndal was so spooked that she stalled the car and then raised some dirt as we sped off. We both heard the footsteps and I definitely want to go back and see if I can't root the bastard out. I firmly believed that whatever was there might have wanted to cause us harm if we'd hung around much longer.
It was very strong here, as strong as any cemetery, and it wasn't a benign presence. I could feel the presence of something in the cemetery, but then I feel that in many such places. We'd taken pile of photos, but these ones are the ones where the ghosts were out and coming for us. By this stage we decided that we'd probably pissed off whatever was wandering around in broad daylight so we left. One last photo of the trees where the footsteps were being heard.
Again, the camera shows nothing, but again, we could hear footsteps while this photo was being taken, they seemed to come from the tree. By this point my hackles were raised and we both began to feel very uneasy. The footsteps were strong by this point as if someone with heavy boots was coming towards us. This is one place where we heard footsteps. As soon as we looked or I took a photo the sound stopped. The sound was clearly footsteps so I pointed the camera behind us and began to snap. We went back and again heard people walking - now, the important thing is that there was no wind and no-one anywhere near us. I wandered over to where it was, nothing. As we stood we could both hear the clear sound of someone walking behind us. However the cemetery is about 10 kilometers from the town itself and not a house in sight.Ībout this time Lyndal had stopped taking photos and had given me the camera. Nothing new there, we get that sensation often in these places. The Reformatory lay between the trees - you can see the faint outline of the foundations.Īs we moved about the cemetery we started to get the sensation that we were being watched. In the background you can see a palm type tree - that's the site of the Reformatory. So, what happened to us? read on, McDuff. We didn't find her grave but more than one person has stated that she often rises from it. Sadly, like so many others of the time, she died inside the walls. A figure of a girl with a lamp has been seen prowling the cemetery and the same figure has been seen walking from the Reformatory to the cemetery.Ī girl named Vera was confirmed as being an inmate of the Reformatory. So who is the ghost? No-one really knows but the word VERA was seen scratched into the walls of the Reformatory more than once and it has appeared in the dirt of the cemetery. It was hailed as being a very haunted place indeed and instead of celebrating this notoriety the locals instead pulled the Reformatory down. The Reformatory was the site of an investigation which still makes the locals shitty if mentioned. Instead of ADD people back then had the Reformatory. It was also used to house orphans, the intellectually disabled and other otherwise difficult members of society, generally people considered to be insane or just misfits. The Reformatory was built in the 1800s and was used to house children who broke the law, no matter how minor the law might have been. The cemetery lies in the shadows of the ruins of the Kapunda Reformatory. The Kapunda cemetery has a strong history as being fairly haunted and it didn't disappoint us in the slightest.
First up, one of the haunted places we've attended, Kapunda Cemetery. I've also been looking at some of the haunted places we've gone into and through, so as not everyone is added to our friends list I thought I'd copy/paste some of the commentary and photos to here for all to see. Over on Facebook I've been uploading a lot of photos from our various trips and touching on some of the more unusual places we've visited.