To celebrate our 10th birthday here at Urban List, we’re asking you to tell us your top 10 lists over on our Instagram—we asked and you delivered on Sydney's best ghost tours.
If you’re a fan of the supernatural, then Sydney is the right place for you. Packed with abandoned jails, creepy botanic gardens, haunted pubs, and islands trapped in an actual paranormal vortex, there’s no shortage of sites to explore and tours to get around if you’re into getting absolutely spooked.
Get ready to hold your loved ones tight, here are the scariest ghost tours in Sydney right now.
The Best Ghost Tours In Sydney
Sydney Ghost Tours
Cammeray
A cemetery, haunted mansion and a historic cottage which served as a mortuary—this is the tour for horror fanatics. Sydney Ghost Tours is a walking tour through a bunch of historic Cammeray sites with a dark past and two tours are conducted per night, one at 8:30pm and the next at 11:30pm. Kicking off from Cammeray Square, you'll be taken through a series of haunted places which bear tales of love, greed, murder, cannibalism and now—many recounts of paranormal activity.
Fisher's Ghost Investigation Tour
Campbelltown
This ghost tour slash investigation is strictly for those above the age of 18. Fisher's Ghost Investigation Ghost Tour is a mini investigation inside one of Campbelltown's most haunted buildings—Quondong Cottage. The spooky antics start in Koshigaya Park carpark and look like an actual investigation run by experienced paranormal investigators and mediums. You'll get to use actual paranormal equipment will swigging back hot choc and you'll definitely want to slap on a good pair of walking shoes, you know, in case you have to run away.
Gates Ghost Tours
CBD
Inside the Royal Botanic Garden, there’s a haunted tour you need to try if you’re well and truly keen on being scared out of your wits. Now open after hours, Garden Gates is bringing to life its shadowy tree-lined paths, gloomy ponds, and eerie grottos in a series of twilight tours not for the faint-hearted. You’ll be taken around the grounds and get to hear creepy stories of the Garden’s past and yes, bringing your own torch is an absolute must. More info is here.
Ghost Tours At Sydney Q Station
Manly
Not for the faint-hearted, Q Station is really (and we mean, really) one of the darkest places to explore in Sydney. This one harbours a bleak history as it was formerly a quarantine station for sickly migrants arriving in Sydney—which feels all too eerily relevant in 2020.
These days, Q Station is the reigning king of ghost tours with a sling of different spooky tours to choose from, including a historical walking tour of the grounds, a ghost tracking session at Q Station’s most haunted sites, an extreme ghost tour loaded with experiments to encourage paranormal activity, and even a spirit searching sleepover (for the true die-hard fans of the poltergeist world).
Ghostyard Tours
Cockatoo Island
It’s believed Sydney’s Cockatoo Island site is trapped in a vortex of negative energy as a result of its horrific past, which means its Ghostyard Tours are, well, bloody scary. Apparition sightings and paranormal-induced symptoms (slight queasiness and headaches) are not uncommon here with supernatural occurrences stretching back more than a century. Throughout your night tour of the island, you’ll be equipped with a K-II EMF reader (a device that detects surrounding electromagnetic energy) and a pendulum. If you really can’t get enough of this stuff, after your tour you can glamp on the island overnight.
Paramatta Gaol Ghost Hunting And Tours
Parramatta
Parramatta Gaol has had its fair share of reconstructions, kicking off its life back in 1796, it has earned itself a strong reputation for being one of the most unforgiving locations in Sydney, historically speaking. Still decked out with rows upon rows of original cells, the ghost tours and hunts at Parramatta Gaol are led by The Australian Paranormal Phenomenon Investigators (who have been running these sessions since 2014). Depending on what you can handle, the ghost tours here incorporate stories of sightings around these grounds, while the ghost hunts are a dedicated interactive session packed with all the guidance, tools, and methods you’ll need in order to communicate with any spirits that might still linger on the premises. Just casually.
Lantern Ghost Tours
The Rocks
As Sydney's oldest "neighbourhood", The Rocks is thought to be a pretty haunted spot. And while you might have heard stories about opium dens and secret rum tunnels, there's a whole lot of ghostly history to soak up here too. This 90-minute ghost tour of The Rocks will delve into its darkest history, including its convict settlement, opium dens, mass burial pits, public executions and gangs that ruled the streets.
Red Coat History Ghost Tours
The Rocks
Enter The Hero of Waterloo, the one place in Sydney where you can knock back a cocktail or two, kick up your heels at the fireplace and spot a casual ghost-in-residence.
Known for its stellar pub feeds and trad-swing live music, The Hero of Waterloo is one of the most haunted pubs in Sydney having been frequented by many a paranormal event in the past. Yep, if anything is likely to give you actual chills, word on the street is that the owner of this watering hole back in 1849 pushed his wife down the stairs to her death and now, her ghost likes to rearrange furniture and play on the piano in the middle of the night. During the Red Coat History Ghost Tours, you’ll get to soak up an eerie guided tour of the cellar—once used to harbour a secret tunnel for smuggling rum plus a free drink too.
The Best Ghost Tours Near Sydney
Blue Mountains Mystery Tours
Blue Mountains
While we all know the Blue Mountans keeps one of the most beautiful landscapes in the country, amid the stunning cascades and picture-perfect hikes, there's a myriad of ghost sites to be explored. Here, your tour guide, afectionately known as Paranormal Pete, will take you out through rugged landscapes and a pretty damn famous 'Ghost Bus'. This one is for hardcore ghost fans with the entire tour spanning anywhere from four to five hours.
Your highlights will include an investigation of an 1830s cemetery, ghost and UFO tales of The Three Sisters and the 'Lady In Black' of Victoria Pass.
Hunter Valley Ghost Tours
Hunter Valley
By day, the Hunter Valley is a smorgasbord of wineries and vineyards any person in their right mind should work their way through. By night, turns out these boozy plains have a few more tricks up their sleeve. They may as well call this region 'Ghost Hunter Valley' because there's a whole lot of supernatural happenings which have occurred in these parts and lets just say if you're a stickler for the scart stuff, your creepy cravings will be more than satisfied here.
With a number of ghost hunting and ghost tours on offer, the most famous tour is the Morpeth ghost and heritage tour (spoiler, Morpeth is pretty much Australia's most haunted town). On this spree, you'll be taken through various haunted sites of an ill-tempered merhant who throws kitchenware around on the odd occassion (apparently), a ghost that haunts the corridors of the Campbell's Store and the secrets of what actually lies beneath the town.
For more awesome things to do in Sydney, head over here.
Image credit: Hoshino Ai