Mystery Ghost Hunt launches this weekend in Cullinan

The 20-years-running Mystery Ghost Bus will be in the world-famous diamond mining town of Cullinan, a town replete with ghost stories and legends.

The part-walking and part-driving night tour will visit the town’s historic buildings and dark eerie areas, and tell tales about everything ranging from poltergeists to indigenous African legends like the vampire-like Lightning Bird (Impundulu). Cullinan has a rich and varied history, from diamonds to world wars, from the 1918 flu epidemic to legends of the Ndebele and San people and the world’s largest diamond ever (Cullinan Diamond).

The hunt will begin with a walk to the Anglican Church, where a secret golden object is buried in the pulpit’s stonework, likely to have something to do with the Freemason Lodge across the road, which itself has many a mystery, including a secret grave and time capsule.

Cullinan Graveyard. Picture: Supplied

At the four-way crossing where the lodge and church, two mysterious lights vanish into the distance, heading towards the Recreation Club. There will sit an old horse carriage used to carry passengers to and from the old hotel, which is filled with historical memorabilia and contains a mysterious cellar.

The Recreation Club, once the entertainment hub of town, boasts murals painted by the Italian prisoners of war who were incarcerated at Zonderwater Prison back in the day. It is said that a vengeful ghost saw Phoenix Paranormal Investigators cut their investigation short a few years back due to one of their team members encountering the ghost beneath the stage.

As the story goes, one of the Italian prisoners of war was gruesomely murdered there during a bitter quarrel while the prisoners were staging a play at the hall to quell their boredom.

Continuing down Oak Avenue, lined with the ghostly white back of its trees, comes many historic corrugated iron and sandstone houses, once inhabited by the mine’s various senior personnel. In the one are two ‘Crisis Ghosts’, where an elderly man frantically pushes an elderly woman in a noisy wheelchair, as if they are urgently looking for medical attention.

Grave of James Grant who died in a mining accident. Picture: Supplied

Nearby is the town’s famous “Spook House” – Mc Hardy House – filled with as many memorabilia as there are supposedly ghosts. One story is about the first mine manager, William Mc Hardy, who lost his son at age 19 during a tragic accident. Outside the house is a fountain crafted by the Italian prisoners of war, where some audience participation allows one to detect unseen force-fields, using dowsing rods to detect water – while Rose-Christie explains the science of the paranormal, including the ‘energy force field lines’ seen in San and Khoi cave paintings.

At Cullinan’s famed Poltergeist House, Rose-Christie talks about African legends and the nearby ‘township’ of Refilwe, where today’s paranormalists now know that the well-known phenomena of stone-throwing onto houses’ roofs – which occurs worldwide – is not the work of witchcraft, but the work of poltergeist phenomena.

Mc Hardy House (Cullinan’s famous haunted house). Picture: Supplied

Audiences will hear about a benevolent ‘Interactive Ghost’ who appears to warn miners of impending danger at the mine where it is believed that a Sotho-speaking miner died during a tunnel collapse long ago.

Then a short stroll to the old railway station will allow one to actually see – and you really do see her – the ‘The Lantern Lady’. She is a lost soul who wanders the railway tracks aimlessly in a delirious state of fugue, looking for her soldier boyfriend who never returned from World War II.

After the railway station, everyone climbs into their cars to join a convoy heading towards the old hospital and its mortuary.

Rose-Christie will then conclude the evening at the cemetery with one of his well-known scary dramatic endings, including a surprise visual climax.

The Mystery Ghost Hunt will run once-off for the public on November 16. Tickets are R550 per person, which includes dinner and dessert at 6pm, followed by the hunt from 7pm to midnight.

Those who wish to sleep over can do so at the Cullinan Diamond Lodge. Click on this link to book the tour.

One of the bedrooms inside Mc Hardy House. Picture: Supplied

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