Talk about fantastic timing - I have been waiting for an EBay purchase to arrive for nearly a month now and had been getting anxious that it had 'gone walkabout' as Australian Aborigines would say. Just as I was about to head out the door to set up my little display for people to find William and I for the ghost tours - Australia Post has put a note in my letter box to tell me this package was waiting for me. I raced to the parcel depot like a scene from Batman leaving the Bat cave, to pick up this awesome piece of kit, and got it set up for my Valentines day Ghost tour visitors just in time...  William the Weimaraner could not stop barking at this scary new gadget for about 15 minutes! :-D

Sydney Ghost Tours made page 1 of "The Mosman Daily" for our Valentines day Ghost tours!

This was our original press release below: “Picking a bone” with Valentines Day

Valentines day is a day of stress, expense, and obligation for singles and couples – and can be boring to boot!

It can be filled with un-necessary drama for even normally romantic couples. If you are single, chances you are feeling the pressure to change that. Or want to shoot yourself to get away from all of the annoying soppiness.

“Could anything be less romantic, than having to book an over rated, overpriced, over crowded restaurant weeks in advance, being stressed out to get there, and then getting hassled by photographers and flower sellers trying to put you on the spot?” asks Daniel Phillips, Leading Sydney Paranormal Expert and founder of SydneyGhostTour.Com

Singles can find themselves surrounded, by uncomfortable, over the top reminders of their temporarily un-romantic life.  It can be a struggle to find something on Valentine’s day that isn’t going to make you feel guilty for not running around with a “+1”.   Surprisingly, not doing the ‘traditional’ valentines routine, can work whether you are single or part of a couple…It will take your mind off all of the soppiness if you are single, and many a couple has gotten closer in the dark, when they are not sure what is about to appear. The adrenaline rush of a good fun scare,has been known to make many a date ‘warm up’ into something much more memorable!

This Valentine’s day evening Sydney Ghost Tours will reveal the often dark, and previously secret tales of love, forbidden love. lust and illicit sex that lies buried in the leafy back yards of Sydney’s Lower North Shore. “We will talk about Sydney’s most famous first aboriginal couple -  Bennelong, and Barangaroo, who was a Cammeraigal woman. We will also talk about how a famous politician got away with killing his wife to marry the maid, at a haunted mansion– and much, much more. Reality is weirder than you could ever make up – and the photographs taken on our tours have had more than just our visitors show up in them! ” said Mr Phillips.

SydneyGhostTour.Com’s Valentines day tours start at the corner of Miller and Amherst Streets in Cammeray, opposite the Wild Sage restaurant, at 6.15pm,  8.15pm and 11.15pm, and are $40.00 per adult. Bookings can be made on 02 8197 0363, or on www.sydneyghosttour.com

Friday the 13th is THIS Friday...are you prepared?

Friday the 13th is a night when the veil between the spiritual and physical worlds is lifted.

 Leading Sydney Paranormal expert Daniel Phillips, said Friday 13th is one of the most haunted days of the year. 

“It is famous for being a time when the dead will often reach out to communicate with the living” said Mr Phillips

 “There are more photos of ghosts, floating orbs and other paranormal phenomena, are recorded on Friday 13th than at any other time”.

“Friday 13th is a time where the spirit world and the physical world get just that little bit closer together...”

Mr Phillips said that some of the most interesting legends around Friday the thirteenth include:

·         If 13 people sit down to dinner together, one will die within the year.

·         The Turks dislike the number 13 so much, that it was practically removed from their vocabulary

·         Many cities that use numbers as street names, in Europe and the U.S, do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue.

·         Many buildings don't have a 13th floor.

·         If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil's luck (Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names).

·         There are 13 witches in a coven.

Mr Phillips runs SydneyGhostTour.com, and said people who go on his Friday the Thirteenth tours are often amazed by what they see.

”People who came on our last Friday 13th tour took some really interesting photos, both at the haunted mansion we visit, and later in the cemetery.”

“They tell me that they will never forget it!” 

This Friday 13th of January, Daniel Phillips of SydneyGhostTour.Com is running tours of a cursed aboriginal site, a Victorian era haunted mansion, and a historic cemetery ( the oldest on the north shore)  complete with resident ghosts.

His “Friday 13th Ghost  tours start at 6.15pm for the family friendly tour, with adults only tours at 8.15pm  and 11.15pm, at the entrance of Stocklands Mall Cammeray Square, on the corner of Miller Street and Amherst Streets in Cammeray.

Numbers are limited, bookings are essential and can be made on 8197 0363, or by visiting www.sydneyghosttour.com

Will you feel the tingle of electricity running up your spine, or the chill of a spirit passing through you, this Friday night?

SydneyGhostTour.Com is revealing the often completely hidden aspects of the Early years of European colonisation in Sydney, taken from both a European and an Aboriginal perspective, this Australia Day week.

Beneath the leafy exterior of suburban homes, and 21st century businesses of Sydney is a hidden history that people walk and drive past, and never give a second thought. A history, more colourful, ambitious and often plain weird, than any American Western could ever be. A history that until recently has remained almost completely secret, hidden away in family letters, diaries, government reports and scientific papers that have been hidden away in archives that members of the public have never previously had free access to.

Daniel Phillips, founder of SydneyGhostTour.Com was gobsmacked by what he managed to find in his research. “There is an Aboriginal heritage office in Northbridge, within fifteen to twenty minutes walk of where I live near North Sydney, that I knew nothing about. I also discovered that much of the very earliest newspapers, diaries, paintings and even the first photography of Sydney going back as far as the 1840’s, had been digitised and made available through some of our major academic and historic institutions literally around the world. This meant that you could put together a more complete picture of what happened when, where and with whom during the 19th century, faster and more completely than any time before in history.”

“Nowhere was that more evident in researching some of the people, the haunted mansions and heritage sites of Sydney. When you can take local legends and verify them with cold, hard documented facts – that is both mind blowing and chilling!” . The benefits of this research has now been combined into SydneyGhostTour.Com’s  latest Sydney Ghost Tour.

For people wanting to learn the hidden secrets of early Sydney, and the founding of Australia as a country, SydneyGhostTour.Com will be running the Australia Day"Hidden Heritage" Ghost tour. Starting at the family friendly time of 7.15pm,  and the adults only sessions at 9.15pm, it will be starting at the entrance of Stocklands Mall Cammeray Square, on the corner of Miller Street and Amherst Streets in Cammeray.  Two daytime tours will be run on Australia day – see the website for details. Numbers are limited, bookings are essential and can be made on 8197 0363, or by visiting www.sydneyghosttour.com

 

"Season to catch up with Ghosts"
by Kat Adamski, North Shore Times

THE ghosts of Christmas past are making a timely appearance on the North Shore.
Historian and tour guide Daniel Phillips has discovered many quirky facts about Christmas since he started organising daytime history tours and Ghost tours at night.
Mr Phillips became fascinated by the names on the gravestones at St Thomas Cemetery in Crows Nest, when he was walking his three year old Weimaraner dog William.
"I've lived in this nick of the woods for 16 years and I realised that most of the history of the North shore is here under our feet" Mr Phillips, of North Sydney, said.
"I researched their names, who they are, and what they did, and real life is always weirder  than anything you can make up. I didn't even have to start stretching the truth  ( for a good story)  - the stories I found freaked me out, and I have a reasonably strong constitution".
One story revolves around a 19th century Cammeray Mansion called Tarella, on Amherst Street, where a number of children died of Cholera. Neighbours have reported seing "lights" which are floating orbs of Ghosts , Mr Phillips said.
"One of the things that really stands out when you read the letters and diaries of Sydney's pioneers is how important  celebrations like Christmas were" Mr Phillips said.
"They had fun trying to keep essentially European traditions in a place where even the seasons appeared to be upside down"
"I explain the history of many of these traditions in a north shore context, how all of the street  and suburbs names came about, and how our pioneers adapted winter traditions to summertime living"
The ghost tours ( at 9.15pm and 11.15pm) and the Ghost of Christmas Past tour ( at 7.15pm) run 7 days a weekwith the exception of Christmas day, New Years Eve and New Years Day.
For Details go to sydneyghosttour.com

The history that's right under our feet:

•  Artarmon – Named after the house of William Gore, Provost Marshall, ( or head of military police of Governor Bligh), that was named after the family estate in Ireland.
• Blues Point – Named originally after Wiliam “Billy” Blue, a former convict, very unusually a negro man in an almost all white country of England at that time, reputedly  ( depending on what source of reference you believe ) originally born in either New York USA, or in Jamaica in the West Indies, who was granted 80 acres in this area.He became one of Sydney’s first row boat ferrymen.  “ The Commodore Hotel” on Blues point road is named for his nickname “ the old commodore”.
  
• Cammeray – named originally “Suspension Bridge” after the bridge over what is now Tunks Park between Cammeray and Northbridge, it was re-named after the Cammeraigal Clan of the Guringai aboriginal tribe – the first residents of Sydney’s lower north shore.
• Chatswood -  is named after the wife of district pioneer and Mayor of Willoughby Richard Hartnett. His wife Charlotte was affectionately known as Chattie, or “Chat” and in 1876 Hartnett named his estate “Chatswood”. When the post office was built in 1879, the suburb took on the name of the district’s most significant property
• Crows Nest – named after the house “Crows Nest” , on Crows Nest estate, the first 500 acres of numerous land holdings that were Granted by Governor Macquarie, and held  by Edward Wollestonecraft and Alexander Berry. It was positioned roughly where Willoughby road and the Pacific highway is right now.  It was named  for the view down the harbour resembling the observation post on the top main sail of a sailing ship
• Gordon – named for Charles Gordon, ( d 1911)  Seventh Baronet of Earlston, Scotland
• Gore Hill – Named for William Gore, Provost Marshall ( head of Military police)
• Hornsby: -  Chief Constable Thorn of Parramatta, and his deputy Sam Horn, captured two bushrangers who had held up a Dr Sherman while he was riding home along the Windsor Road near Parramatta. As a reward, Chief Constable Thorn was granted 640 acres of land ( that became Thornleigh) and Sam Horn was granted a neighbouring 320 acres that became “Hornsby”
• Killara – Name was chosen by an early settler Mr J.G.Edwards, when securing the building of a railway station in the area., from the aboriginal language, meaning “Permanent” or “Always there”
• Lane Cove- named after John Lane, son of the Lord Mayor of London,  a great friend of Governor Arthur Phillip
• Lavender Bay – Named after George Lavender ( d 1851) the boatswain of the prison hulk ( stripped out sailing ship used to house convicts) that was moored in what is known as Lavender bay. George would row back and forth from this ship daily to go to work.
• Lindfield – named after the home of an early settler called List, who had named his home after Lindfield in Surrey, England
• Milsons Point – named after James Milson, granted originally 50 acres by Governor King in 1807.  Eventually became a supplier of food and supplies to ships, a major landholder and farmer, and a property advisor / land steward to both Governors Macquarie and Brisbane. His original home is roughly where the north Eastern Pylon of the Sydney Harbour bridge is now.
• North Sydney –  Originally part of the suburb of St Leonards, this area had it’s name changed in the later 19th century. Ironically this was the last railway station on the North Shore line to be built,  taking place in 1932  when the re-alighnment of the railway track took place so that trains started crossing the harbour bridge.  The distinctive “second CBD” skyscraper skyline originally started taking place in the late 1960’s and early 1970s, and has grown since then
• Pymble – Named for Richard Pymble, and the Pymble family. First Orchardists
• Roseville – named afer the substantial stone cottage of George Wilson, and orchardist of the district. The original house was demolished to make way for the railway station
• St Ives – named for Isaac Ellis Ives, (d 1906) mayor of Sydney, Member of Parliament for St Leonards ( Which used to cover most of the lower north shore ). Resident of “Gibraltar” Mansion on Blues Point Road, Blues Point.
• St Leonards – is named after St Leonards-on-Sea (or for short, St Leonards) a part of Hastings, East Sussex, England. Originally had a much wider meaning than it does now,  as it was the original name of North Sydney, and the North Sydney district area including much of the lower North Shore. St Leonards has a close connection to Sydney itself, because the British Statesman Thomas Townshend, the then British Home Secretary, Baron Sydney of Chiselhurst ( whose name Captain Phillip gave to Sydney Cove in 1788) was the man whose idea it was, nd was the primary political mover behin to send the First Fleet to Botany Bay. He was created a viscount on his retirement from public service in 1789, and took the name Viscount Sydney of St Leonards, after the North Shore of Sydney and it's district was then named.
• Thornleigh: Chief Constable Thorn of Parramatta, and his deputy Sam Horn, captured two bushrangers who had held up a Dr Sherman while he was riding home along the Windsor Road near Parramatta. As a reward, Chief Constable Thorn was granted 640 acres of land that became “Thornleigh”.
• Turramurra – Name was chosen by Robert Pymble after overhearing the local aborigines refer to the area as “Turramurra” or “Turraburra” – meaning “big hill”
• Waitara – Chosen by local residents who had also spent time in New Zealand, near a sea port in Taranaki province. It comes from the Maori language, and means “hail”. In Australian usage we emphasise the “tar” part of the name – in Maori each syllable is said “Wai-ta-ra”
• Warrawee – Chosen by J.G Edwards and a Mr Remington, early local settlers in the district, who took it from the aboriginal language, meaning “stop here”.
• Wahroonga – Chosen from the Guringai aboriginal language, meaning “Our Home”
• Waverton – named for the home owned by the Carr family, an early pioneering family of the North Shore – Carr Street is also named for them
• Willoughby - commemorates Sir James Willoughby Gordon, who was the Quartermaster-General of the Royal Navy when the first fleet set sail in 1788
• Wollestonecraft – named for Alexander Berry’s business partner, Edward Wollestonecraft. Major Land holders in the district. Alexander Berry donated the 4 acres of land in West Street Crows Nest to the St Thomas' Church, for the Cemetery for a burial place for his wife, Elizabeth Berry, nee Wollestonecraft, Edward's sister.
  

 

 

 

Nearly everyone has either seen a horror story take place, or heard of one at an Office Christmas Party. Many a potentially bright career has been suddenly curtailed by saying or doing something that just wasn’t smart in front of work colleagues, or the “company brass”.

Daniel Phillips, founder of SydneyGhostTour.Com, Sydney’s leading History & Ghost Tour company has compiled a list of the top things NOT to do at your office Christmas Party.

“ The Office Christmas Party, for the naive, looks like a great opportunity to cut loose and let your hair and guard down, all paid for by the rare generosity of the Company you work with. Unfortunately – it isn’t. The Key is to remember that this is an OFFICE event. It isn’t your home, and these people are your work colleagues, which unfortunately means that they aren't necessarily your friends” Daniel warns. These are his top 10 tips not to become a Christmas Party Horror Story:

1.       Know your alcohol limits and avoid them – or if in doubt, don’t drink at all. It is better to wake up with a job and interesting memories of the night before, than with excruciating embarrassment, costly regrets, and a hangover.

2.       Don’t avoid the hors d'oeuvres. If you are going to drink at all, drinking on an empty stomach is not a good idea, unless you want the alcohol to go straight to your head.

3.       Avoid getting “too friendly” with anyone from the office at the party. Think David Jones, Mark McInnes , Kristy Fraser-Kirk & the $36,000,000.00 sexual harassment lawsuit than resulted from combining Alcohol, hormones and stupidity. The hottest girl or guy, is not worth the risk to your career, if they are a co-worker..

4.       Think carefully about the impression you want to create from what you wear, and dress conservatively.  Ear, nose, eyebrow and lip jewellery for a gentleman or showing too much skin for a lady is probably a really bad idea.  Use what you wear to the Office Christmas Party to further your good professional reputation, rather than damage it.

5.       Dancing is often a part of Christmas parties these days. This is also a very dicey area. If you go on your own to a party, dance with a group, move around and mingle appropriately rather than allow one person to get the wrong impression, and dance with the chasteness you would exhibit if you were dancing with your brother or sister. There is enough gossip flying around usually already – don’t add to it by an R rated performance on the dance floor.

6.      Don’t drag someone else's date underneath the mistletoe, or go under the mistletoe with anyone else, period. Even kissing your own date at an office function, no matter how quickly, is not “good form”. Save it for somewhere else.

7.       Do NOT Sit on Santa's lap. If they were Jabba the hutt in a business suit before the party, they are still Jabba the Hutt in a red and white suit tonight.

8.       Don’t talk shop or about your co-workers at the party. It usually backfires – and frankly, you just don’t know who is listening.

9.       Sure, perhaps everyone might look like they are letting their hair down, however, don’t be tempted to start using “blue” language. It is a work function, and people have memories like elephants about how professional or otherwise you appear.  Do NOT let your guard down! You may be at what seems like a festive event, but you are still swimming with sharks.

10.   If the food is genuinely good – pass on compliments both to the organiser and the people at the venue. Genuine appreciation is worth it’s weight in gold. However, if the food is lousy – SHUT UP!  Complaining about it is just adding to the unpleasantness of the food. Smile, be gracious, and eat later elsewhere.

Bottom line, behave at the party the way you'd be expected to behave if it was a client party. Keep it dignified, light, and friendly. The rules of good office behaviour don't change because someone opens a bottle of champagne. If anything, they get even more important. Break them and people will remember. For a very long time.

Of course, if you would like to experience an Office Christmas Party Horror story that is a lot of fun, and has no career casualties attached to it, SydneyGhostTour.Com and the best restaurants of Cammeray can help you have a really fantastic night.   This would be a wonderful office Christmas party dinner, at a range of different restaurants featured on our website, followed by the adult version of the “Ghosts of Christmas Past” Sydney Ghost tour.  If you need to organise a last minute office Christmas party, or just want to do something different for fun,  you will need to  contact us quickly on 02 8197 0363, or check out www.sydneyghosttour.c

Family Ghost tour in Sydney

Are you looking for a spooky, yet safe way to celebrate this Halloween with your "Little Monsters"? 

Real life is always creepier than anything an author can ever imagine.

In the tradition of the Warner Brothers cartoons of the 1930's and '40s where they are scripted so that a child gets a child's understanding, and an adult percieves many more levels of understanding - we have put our "Family Friendly" ghost tour together. That way you you and the younger members of your family can enjoy the Ghost tour, without feeling like you had a "one size fits all - small, that is.." experience.

We will show you a whole different side to Sydney that never seems to make it into History classrooms, that will change your impressions of much of what you see in Sydney every day. Everything from major landmarks to suburb names have a rich story that is buried with the skeletons of Sydney's hidden past.

We will also explain how Halloween came about, it's history, and things like halloween costumes, evil spirits, vampires bonfires, fortune telling, trick or treat, and finish the tour with a "Halloween Skull & Sweets Hunt" in a graveyard. If you would like to dress up and come along to play - knock yourself out! ( and that goes for big kids, too!).Click on the "Our tours" tab to find out more!