How one woman has explained paranormal activity at Wollongong's most haunted sites

Warrawong resident, Amy Rose, started a Facebook group Secrets of the Illawarra, writing about the dark history of the city a couple of years ago, and has only recently paired up with a psychic medium to evaluate peoples' paranormal experiences.

"Up until recently, I was writing about the dark history of the region which explains a lot of paranormal incidents but I'm now working with an amazing medium and her evaluations have been scarily accurate," Ms Rose said.

Some regions in Illawarra, Ms Rose said, have acquired quite a reputation in paranormal circles, with one of the most infamous ones from the Crown Lane.

"Excelsior Hall, currently Breakout Bar and Escape Rooms, as well as the corner of Keira and Crown streets is associated with paranormal activity," Ms Rose said.

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Ms Rose said the medium believes most spirits wandering this region are angry as they haven't been given justice and also disapprove of the developmental changes and their history being ripped down.

Speaking of the Howarth's Excelsior Hall on Crown Street, Ms Rose said the age of the building and the amount of people that have passed through its doors means there is quite a collection of spirits accumulated over the years

"There's a town crier, it's an older lady who lost a son in the mine disaster. She still visits the old monument site and cries for her son. Some people hear her sobs," Ms Rose said.

Wollongong resident Troy Lester who used to work at a beauty school at Crown Lane years ago, is a believer.

"One afternoon I heard a blood-curdling scream and rushed downstairs thinking it was from the florist there and they were rushing upwards thinking it was us," he said.

They never found out where it came from.

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Another time, Mr Lester said, he heard a woman's voice begging for help playing on the speaker and thought it was a part of the song, so he changed the music.

"No matter what I played, I just kept hearing 'help me' and it just got louder and more distraught throughout the day," he said.

Mr Lester said quite a few staff also saw the ghost of an older lady standing in one of the cubicles in the toilets.

"She'd be standing at the opposite end of the toilet, with her hands up near her face. She was always smiling. Nothing nasty or evil, but still unnerving," he said.

There were also sightings of a spirit in the kitchen, Mr Lester said, which they titled as the crazy chef, owing to where he was regularly seen.

"He'd do things like tap you on the shoulder, play with your hair and knock things off the benches," he said.

The psychic medium has confirmed the presence of the spirit of a cook in the area.

"He bumps into people and has recently moved to the food court in the shopping centre," she said.

The medium believes all of these spirits do wander and do not just stay in one place.

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Ms Rose said one of the many spirits frequenting the area is that of a woman who was violently murdered years ago.

"She is angry that no one knows who she is or what happened to her. She touches people and is fond of the 'asylum' room at the Breakout Bar. She can be quite menacing and can leave unexplained bruises," she said.

Another location exuding quite a lot of negative energy is Puckey's Estate Reserve in Fairy Meadow, Ms Rose said.

The 34-year-old said there have been many rumours which remain unconfirmed about suspicious deaths, rapes, murders and people who have gone missing in the walkways of Puckey's Estate

"The most common of these rumours is one of a young girl, approximately 15 years of age, who was raped and brutally stabbed by two men in their twenties, who, when finished with her, threw her body into the river, where she drowned," she said.

Many people claim to have seen the ghost of the young girl at dusk or sunset, however reports so far have been unconfirmed.

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"Other such stories have arisen about Puckey's such as one about children who call to you as you walk through are said to be the voices of those who have been murdered and never found," Ms Rose said.

A Wollongong couple who wished to remain anonymous spoke of an unnerving experience as they were walking through Puckey's one day.

"We saw some half-naked men running and there was an older woman standing who said 'there has been a murder' and a few seconds later she was gone," they said.

A photographer, Dale Cheetham, captured some startling inexplicable apparitions during New Year's Eve 15 years ago.

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