The haunted house of Bathurst

 Many peoples ideal holidays don’t involve freaky haunted towns, old bars and crazy people. But then again I'm not like many people.

 As you read in my previous post, I took a likening to the little settlers town called Bathurst. I loved it so much that my father took me back the next day so I could do some more antique shopping. I ended up in a bar with my father and the many crazy locals talking rubbish and watching comedy acts done by the community. Bathurst has always appealed to be because of its spooky atmosphere and I've always been intrigued to find out the history of this tiny ‘town’. Murphy’s Law, here I was sitting in the lounge area and in walks an old lady who sits next to me. She was rather chatty and I picked up that she was a local and tried make conversation with her. Much to my advantage she knew a lot about the town and its history and I found myself asking questions left, right and centre. I went in there feeling that there was a mystery to be solved and walked out with an enormous number of unanswered questions and all the old lady could say was see for yourself. Well I didn’t see for myself but I did get some answers. Quite a while back a reporter that lives in port Alfred visited a supposedly ‘haunted house.’ The story goes that there was a group of settlers that lived on farms in Bathurst; this particular house was owned by a nun. She wasn’t really a people’s person but shared her house with a bunch of young solders that were fighting the Xhosa Boer war. Some say she went crazy, others say it was a statistic act, but it doesn’t matter what people assume, the fact is that she hung herself in the closet of one particular room in the house. She was found dead and was buried in a church yard not far out of town. Till about 5 years ago the house stood empty as people knew they dare not go in it for she was powerful beyond measure. Now believe what you want but this is no lie. It wasn’t until an English lady came to Bathurst and found that the house had an unusual charm to it. People warned her but she insisted on buying the house. People thought she was crazy when she started telling them about her first night there. She said it was unimaginable, like nothing she had ever experienced. First little things started happening such as lights going on and off and chairs moving, buts that’s the usual she states. She went upstairs, on the hottest night in Bathurst, the room that the nun died in was as cold as a freezer. Then the smell came, an unbearable smell like dead bodies drifted into the air. The smell came from the floor boards so she opened it up. Some say there were dead solders body parts under the floorboards; others say it was just the smell of them. Those were just some of the many stories about this house, and I don’t want to know the worst.

 People called this lady mad, but she told the people that the ghost is her friend and they always talk about the old days. As I sat there, outside writing this story, a chilly wind picked up almost freezing my fingers, the sun went away and the sky was filled with grey, grey clouds. Call it a coincidence if you want, but I believe every word.