World Tour: In this segment, we explore ghostly images and spirits in New South Wales, Australia.

In our recent travels around Mudgee - we made a point to stop at various cemeteries to look at the historic plots and stones. Being both poet and photographer, these places call for me to stop - even if only for a short spell, to talk with those that came before us on this road, and pay our respects.

Solstice Ghosts ... Windeyer Catholic Cemetery - this cemetery is located on the main road, about 1 km west of the centre of the village of Windeyer in the grounds of the Roman Catholic Church. Should you try to find it ever, it's on Pyramul Road; just turn east at Grattai Hall and follow the road 20 or so kilometers.

It was the eve of the Winter Solstice, which 'down under' means it was a chilly and cool June evening. The Solstice moon was rising - and this one stone, carved into a Christian Cross looked so majestic with the moon rising behind it - it just begged to have a photo taken.

The lettering was completely worn off, so we really don't know who's spirit this may have been (assuming they keep to their own particular plots), and have no idea how old this stone was, but it was in the old section of the cemetery, the earliest of which dates from 1872, so we can assume early 1900's. The spirits of the cemetery were with us this eve, and if you look at the larger image, take a sip of your coffee first and then put the cup down for the ghostly images are profound. I did actually get the feeling they wanted their photo taken. A second snap-shot, however, revealed no such ghostly images on it.

Hill End Cemetery

Mining Town Ghosts - The Hill End area was proclaimed an historic site in 1967 and one widely accepted story is that it is one of the first towns in to be built as part of the Australian Gold Rush. An Aboriginal tracker uncovered the first nugget in 1852. During the boom period between 1871 and 1874, the population of the town rose by 8000 and the amount of gold extracted from the area exceeded 62,200 kg. The best known find was made by Beyers and Holtermann in 1872 with the largest nugget ever found, weighing almost 286 kg.

The town itself showed the signs of times gone by, and most of the stores only opened on weekends. So although most of the surviving homes were surrounded by beautiful gardens and rolling grassy paddocks, the roads surrounding and especially those in the national parks were gutted and hard to drive upon. No longer is it a place of prosperity.

Hill End Cemetery Ghosts - Click for larger image

Hill End is rather the ghost town in the metaphorical sense since so few people live there anymore, but walking about the town you'll find the remains of what was once a stone chapel. If you are sensitive, you will feel the presence of spirit in this place, as so many had come to worship and pray, be joined in holy ceremonies, or say a final good-bye to beloved ones.

The historic cemetery - very old with gated family plots, and stones abound, is set off a main road as you leave town. Several photographs were taken here but at one point, I felt compelled to turn and aim the camera at an unimpressive corner of the land. The resulting photograph indicates several spirits, captured on film - swirling around to the edge, as though they were watching us with curiosity and wondering what we would do next.

Of course, we did the only thing we ever do when visiting a cemetery, especially one in a town that was filled with people who had such high hopes and dreams of the riches they would acquire - we paid our respects, and were mindful not to step on any of the graves. Several of the graves were unmarked or marked only by simple stones with no names given. One plot was put together with mining equipment fashioned to look like crosses. Could they have been victims of a mining tragedy? Perhaps it was their spirits that watched us.

Before leaving, we set loose some tobacco to the four winds, and said a prayer for them. May they always know peace.

Note to skeptics: we shot over 200 photographs on this excursion to Australia. Of those photographs, the only ones that had ghost images were taken at cemeteries. All the others appeared to be ghost-free. So before you send an email suggesting we clean the lens, or that it is mist or fog - know that we do employ the use of a lens cover when the camera is not in use, and (although they aren't displayed here), and other photographs in the sets surrounding the ones that are displayed appeared normal.

Do you have a ghost story to tell? We want to publish it. Contact us with the details.

We are offering cards and prints of this ghost image - visit our gift shop to see them.