This islet with the funny name Kakadu and not at all funny dark past lies in the Sydney harbor in Australia at the junction of the Rosehill and Lane Cove rivers.
Now it is a historical site where tourists are brought, and is filled with old brick buildings. But between 1839 and 1869 there was a place of exile for the worst prisoners.
Here came those who had already passed through ordinary prisons and continued to commit crimes, and here they were used as slaves in shipyards. For the slightest offense, they were beaten, tortured, and imprisoned in tiny solitary cells that looked like coffins.
The high mortality rate of prisoners here was in the order of things, and it often happened that the prisoners simply disappeared and their fate remained unknown to anyone.
By the end of the 19th century, the prison on the island was closed, but in the same premises there was a "school" for Aboriginal girls who were forcibly taken away from their parents. Those girls were sent here who tried to escape from the “missions” - Christian shelters, were aggressive and wayward. It was called a reformatory and treated children here only a little softer than previously with dangerous criminals.
A still from the movie * The Rabbit Trap * about the escape of Australian Aboriginal girls from the * mission *, where they were taken away from their parents.
With all this in mind, it is not surprising that it is better not to get impressionable people on Kakadu Island, because frightening ghosts have settled on this island forever since those gloomy times.
And they are not whitish spirits in a shroud, but terrible shapeless shadows that flicker among the buildings and inside them.
Promotional video:
These scary shadow ghosts were regularly seen by shipbuilding workers and the ghosts were very aggressive, they could easily push someone from a great height, push someone on the stairs.
Some of the accidents that happened to the workers here were attributed to the activity of ghosts.
One of the premises of the reformer on Kakadu Island.
Very often electronic devices broke down in workshops, a very smelly smell of cigarette smoke appeared in the corridors, and in the same corridors one could hear sounds as if from the feet of running children, as well as children's screams and squeals.
Very rarely, but sometimes they saw classical ghosts, which were translucent silhouettes of young girls in 19th century dresses.
But far more often the workers fell into some kind of "clouds" in which their whole body was covered with a feeling of intense fear and suffering. It was like a concentration of the suffering that the prisoners experienced here, and then the young aboriginal women.
One of the most famous local ghosts is considered to be the daughter of one of the wardens who died in childhood. Here's how one of their local tour guides describes her:
The smells of cigarettes and tobacco that arise and disappear by themselves are a separate topic for the guides:
Now, many tourists come to Kakadu every year, and schoolchildren are taken here on historical excursions. The fame of the "ghost island" has added to its popularity, especially among young people, but those who at least once personally came across local ghosts prefer not to come here anymore.