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I live in Sydney, Australia. I'm also a sceptic. I haven't changed my mind but this really did happen to me and I can find no rational explanation. Well, I'm a 'drainer' (you know, like a caver or spelunker, but since I live in the city I tend to explore drains and sewers more than caves and crevices) as a hobby. I've always been interested in the convict-built structures around Sydney, so when a friend of mine decided he wanted to have a look at the old Northern Harbour defence tunnels built by the English when they first landed here in Sydney I was interested. Just a little note for you all...Sydney's harbour has risen quite a lot over the last 200 years. Places like The Tank Stream and both Northern and Southern Defence Tunnels are (at the very least) partially water filled. So we got permission from the local Council and took full wetsuits and scuba gear, an inflatable dingy and waterproofed EVERYTHING and were at the Reserve (on the Harbour foreshore below Taronga Park Zoo) by about 11am, February 15, 1997 (a beautiful end-of-Summer Saturday). There were six of us in total, but only four of us were going in this time. The four of us suited up and started into the tunnels at exactly midday. The first thing I must say is that we walked into the dark, musty smelling square-cut cobweb-filled tunnels that everyone knows who's been down there (near the rusted up cannons in their turning circles). And let me tell you if you can't handle spiders, cobwebs and rats you'd best not try draining! After a certain distance you could see where whatever kids had been brave enough to visit the tunnels gave up (no more graffiti, the dirty floors were not scuffed up as much) And then I seriously started looking at the convict-cut and built walls...there was even a bit of graffiti dating back to 1809! Cooool! The old place had certainly lost whatever charm it may have had though...the tunnels actually wind around at (mostly) ground level for quite a few kilometers, and I think we did just about all of them. Sometimes you could see out of almost-totally overgrown eyeholes (gun holes?) the city, or in the other direction, down Middle Harbour to the Heads, or just bushland. At other times we were almost up to our hips in...well, I never say the liquid is ONLY water... But mostly there was just blackness and an untraceable stench of sewerage. Some parts of the tunnels had collapsed under the ministrations of the Reserve's bushland above, with roots and stuff poking through the sandstone blocks. Then the tunnel is right underground (we figured they must be almost under the Zoo itself) sloped downwards. This is where we stopped to puff up the dingy (usually when the water in places like this gets deep enough it can be dangerous to attempt to wade or swim though it, let's just say rats like chewing air hoses and scubawear, but don't like 'big' boats and so keep away) and continued on our way. I was sitting on the left hand rear side of the dingy, and it got to a point during our travels that the top of the dingy was scraping the roofs! It was during this part of the draining that I noticed what looked like more tunnels than there had been for quite a while...I pointed this fact out to the guys and they agreed with me...but we only had a certain amount of time and we were going to head back in about 10 minutes or so. One of the fellas noticed the water was becoming 'tidal' (being pushed and pulled by the Harbour currents) and figured we'd best turn around and start heading back. We did just that, but as we were coming to where the water seriously bounced the dingy off the roof I was laying flat in the boat, and the only things outside the dingy I could see were through the plastic oar holes on the side of the boat. At one time, over at one of the tunnels coming off the main one we had travelled down, I thought I saw a blueish/green light, hovering - I figured it was the sewer equivalent to 'swamp gas', but it was a little unnerving. Shortly after that I looked out again and saw...what looked like a glowing man. In rags that could have once been a tailored suit or uniform (you know what I mean, you see homeless men wearing the sort of "over-crushed suitish things" in the city all the time) and he was watching us go past, looking both sad and angry. I figured I was hallucinating and brushed it off until we got 'topside'. But it shook me up pretty badly at the time. I mean, we're in nearly 6 foot deep water, in a tunnel no one (and I mean NO ONE) could have come down without the same sort of equipment as we had, the place REEKED of sewerage so badly we were using our airtanks, and there's this GUY standing hunched, covered in water but GLOWING in one of the side tunnels! One of the guys in our dingy said he felt so very cold (even in his wetsuit) when we passed both times at a spot that must have been pretty close to where I saw ... whatever I saw. He also said he saw something like a person's shadow on one of the walls, but figured it must have been his imagination. I don't know the history of those particular tunnels very well (the most I know is that they were built by convicts, were fairly extensive and were used to defend Middle Harbour from "an invasion" - the English seemed terrified of the French in the time Australia was colonised.) So I figure I had no pre-conceived mental 'attitude' towards the tunnels being haunted or not. I also believe strongly that a person's emotional reaction to a place has strong influence on them "Seeing Something". My emotional reaction was excitement and historical architectural curiosity...hardly the emotional pre-requisites to see phantoms. I have also discounted any possibility of us not being alone in the tunnel in question. No-one has been in those particular tunnels before for many years (or since, as far as I am aware) and so I've got no one to compare notes with... skeptika's note: Can any one shed any light on LR's story? |
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