New Zealand Ghosts & Other Haunts

"It took three exorcisms and a Maori blessing to expel the spirits from historic Cotter House, one of the homes featuring on this year’s Look Good Feel Better Fine Homes Tour.

If only these walls could talk. There must be hundreds of fascinating tales to tell about the goings-on at Remuera’s Cotter House over the past 158 years.

The fifth oldest home in Auckland has a past just about as colourful as its exquisitely decorated blue and green sitting rooms and, according to current owner Gloria Poupard-Walbridge, it was haunted until she called in the exorcists."...........................................

Photos just published of characterful small-town New Zealand pubs stir vivid memories for me, one being a night at the allegedly haunted Vulcan Hotel, St Bathans.

Booking in during a Central Otago wander, I crossed the road from the little pub and peered down into Blue Lake. A barmaid was said to have drowned herself in the lake after being jilted by one of the 19th-century goldminers. Others say the pregnant girl was murdered.............