Lots of things go bump in the night in Picton, unexplained happenings guaranteed to set your hair on end and send a shiver down the spine.

There’s eeriness so palpable it’s forced even the most determined of skeptics to declare the NSW Southern Highlands town haunted.

And there, soaking up every spooky tale, is local historian Liz Vincent, who is somewhat of a tonic for the town.
In the past, the residents kept their ghostly encounters to themselves for fear of being declared mad. But Liz listens without judgment,, ridicule or cynicism, helping to draw out the townsfolk’s  phantom fables.

Liz knows what her neighbours are going through. Her home is one of the many in town that plays host to ghostly guests.
“They can’t hurt you,” she insists, “although they can cause a bit of mischief. At my house we had ghost that would slam doors in my son’s face. He thought it was me playing tricks on him!

“Another time, my son was sitting quietly and I heard a clatter. He called out, “Ouch! What did you do that for?”
Something invisible had thrown a pen at him. The strange thing was, we’d never seen the pen before. It didn’t belong to us.
When Liz’s son moved out, so did the mysterious  door slamming pen thrower. But the ghost of her dear old Dad still lingers near. He causes a stir with his phantom ringing of Liz’s front doorbell, and the turning off and on of lights – especially  when he has an audience.
“I had a TV producer come to talk to me  about the ghosts of Picton  and the light started going on and off”    Liz recalls “I simply said, ‘Hello Dad’” and kept talking, but this guy totally freaked out”

Not only has Liz written a book capturing Picton’s ghost stories, she also braves the dark by torchlight to lead tours aimed at bringing the living face to face with the dead.

Over at the old Picton Post Office, built in 1892 and now home to an art gallery and café, owner  Mark Hardacre has his hands full with a ghost known as the Fresh Air Freak.

“We’ve go a heavy front door with a deadlock on it” Mark says. “One morning, I had a call from the local newsagent telling me the door was wide open. I went to check, thinking there’d been a break – in…..nothing. I locked the door again and myself and the newsagent checked it to make sure it was secure. Next thing his wife is out in the street pointing at the door again. It was open! We couldn’t believe our eyes. Other times windows we’d locked would be found wide open. – hence the nickname”
The ghost, who Liz and Mark believe is that of the former postmaster, also causes terror by locking unsuspecting tourists in the café’s toilet.
“It’s an uneasy part of the building back there” explains Mark. “The room in which he died often drops in temperature.”

The staircase in the building often echoes with phantom footsteps. Staffs go to greet what they think is a customer arriving only to be met by nothing.
“Ive heard the footsteps” says Liz “and as soon as I did, I just wanted to get out of the building. I could hear voices too. I dreaded to think what was lurking under the stairs.”

A Polish documentary team is also willing to vouch for the oddness of the old post office.
Recently filming upstairs near the postmaster’s death room, they got the shock of their lives.
“They came to interview the staff about the ghosts.” Mark explains.  “and while they had the cameras rolling, the doors flew open. They thought we had the doors wired for the effect. But there were no gusts of wind, no tricks – just another unexplained incident”
Despite all these “incidents”, Mark says he remained a healthy skeptic until one night in his 110 year old house he had his own close encounter.
“My wife was asleep and I was sitting on our verandah with my sister Kerry.” He says. “We heard a door close, then footsteps and we thought it was my wife getting up. We both felt a presence behind us and turned to look but there was nothing there – and my wife was still fast asleep. We’ve head the footsteps several times since, but now we’re used to it”

Needless to say, Mark is no longer a cynic. Taps and lights being turned on by invisible hands, tools being mysteriously moved – its as if the ghosts of Picton have a playful side to them. But on a more sinister note, the locals near the old Maternity Hospital have complained of being woken in the night feeling someone is trying to strangle them.
“We believe that’s the old matron making house calls” Liz says. “She’s been spotted a few times. She’s the only nasty ghost we’ve got”
And over on a windblown  hill known as the Upper Picton Cemetery, a man’s been seen striding through the tombstones as if they’re made of thin air.

Then there’s the woman in white who has stopped trains on the tracks, and a man and his kids emerging in the dead of night from the old Redbank Range Railway Tunnel.
“We saw them ourselves,” says Liz. “They walked straight by us. One of our tour party took a photo of them, but they didn’t come out in the developed pictures. Can you imagine bringing children up here with no torch on a pitch-black night? They were ghosts, no doubt!
And for anyone thinking Liz has an overactive imagination, she dares  you to do a ghost tour.  “But be warned, ghosts love to single out skeptics,” she says. “We were up at the old Railway tunnel and this loudmouth was full of bluster as we walked into the darkness. Then a ghost grabbed hold of his arm and refused to let go.  Boy, did he scream! I ran into his mate a few months later and he told me it took this bloke weeks to get over it.
“But nothing on the tour is contrived” Liz concludes. “No gimmicks, I don’t have people jumping out of the bushes going Boo! We’ve got enough real ghosts to do that!”
Story by Glen Williams – Woman’s Day Magazine September 2005