c.1980

Pilliga Scrub, NSW Australia

The Pilliga Scrub is a massive expanse of thick bushland in the central upper half of New South Wales and covers an area of about 80 x 120 kilometres. Much has been lost in there, never to be found again, from sheep and cattle, to people and vehicles. Even today, it is dense and forbidding, although what used to be a dirt track that ran through the middle is now a major road called the Newell Highway.

There are a lot of stories that have emerged from the forest, and one in particular that sticks in my mind is that of a bag-lady who lived in the Pilliga Scrub. She was often seen with her old battered shopping trolley loaded with her belongings along the road, and  truckies would see her at night walking in complete darkness.

She was a recluse, old, grey haired and crazy, and they dubbed her the Pilliga Princess. For many years, she was a familiar sight to regular travellers, particularly truck drivers along that stretch of road. Because the Pilliga Scrub had (and still has) unexplained stories of terror associated with it, the locals will tell you you’d have to be completely crazy to be in the scrub after dark. Anyone passing through for the first time saw the Princess as an almost terrifying ghostly figure, even if they hadn’t heard the scary stories beforehand.

1993

One night in 93 the Pilliga Princess was hit and killed by a truck. The truckie who hit her said she had been wandering across the road and he hadn’t seen her until it was too late. He told how as she was lit by the headlights, she turned to look directly at him and ran toward him, arms outstretched. The last thing he saw of her alive was the white hair flaring out around her wild-eyed face and the expression was one of manic glee.

Since then other  truckies swear they have seen her walking her trolley at night, just as she had done for years before she was killed. One truck driver even claimed to have hit her trolley, but with no Princess in sight.

If you are from that region, or have driven through there and have seen anything unusual, I would love to hear from you. Thanks to the person who emailed me the following image from the Australian Cemeteries Index, we now know the name of the Princess.

There are many more Pilliga stories from truckies, and there are a couple in particular that I’d like to include here later.

1979

Trangie, NSW Australia

It was the May school holidays. Back when there were only three school terms per year in Australia, I would stay at my cousin’s house every May school holidays. He lived in Trangie, which is the next town west of my home town, Narromine. Incidentally, it was around this time in my life when my grandmother (who lived next door to my cousin) told the story of The Water Tank to us.

My cousin’s name is John. The age difference between us is three weeks, him being the elder. Back then I considered him my best mate, but he probably didn’t think the same.. looking back, I guess the relationship was a bit like an older brother, who was slightly intolerant of the younger, but it was a good relationship nonetheless. I guess I admired him for his charisma (he had lots of friends, played football, swore and spat like a 18yr old), and he admired my brains and drawing ability (I was a clever little bastard, always drawing and inventing projectile weapons).

Anyway, at the age of 8, together we were a bit of a handful. Day after day, without telling anyone where we were off to, we would disappear from sunrise to sunset, riding old beat-up push bikes, making slingshots, making bow and arrows (“Let’s make a barren arra!”), chuckin rocks, climbing things, getting bitten by things and walking all day. Every day we did something different, and come home in the afternoon covered in sweat, dirt and scratches. It’s times like those that, as an adult, you look back thinking that they were the best times of your life.

Now over the years, both of our families have seen a lot of strange stuff, and through the generations we’ve all told each other stories of weird lights, ghosts, crazy people, injury and death. On the odd occasion that the whole family gets together, I love to soak up all the stories as they fly out of everyone’s faces. Well like many others in the family, I have a few stories of my own, and for John and I, this one belongs to both of us.

One day during the May school holidays, it was getting late in the afternoon and being Autumn, the daylight was beginning to fade. John and I were walking toward his house and we shortcut through a laneway. One of the buildings that backed onto this laneway was the Trangie Town Hall, and built onto the back of the Hall was a kind of storage shed on stilts. We jumped the fence (back then, fences were made for jumping) and decided to find out if we could see what was in the shed. There was a short flight of old wooden stairs that lead up to two doorways: a rear door to the Hall, and the shed door beside it. We crept to the top of the stairs and found both doors locked. There was a big padlock on the Hall door, but on the shed door, a keyhole.

We couldn’t see through the keyhole because it was blocked with thick spider webs, and within, I could see a chunky little black spider waiting. I found a piece of fencing wire under the stairs, cleared the keyhole and looked through. Beyond the keyhole was a room which, despite the low afternoon light, was quite well lit by a curtainless window on the facing wall. The room, the window and all the room’s untidy contents were covered in dust and spider webs.

There was an old bed with some sort of a basket on it, a few squat trunks, some clothes racks, a chair or two and a few pairs of big old black leather shoes. There were other things that didn’t seem too out of place for a locked room full of dust and spiders.. but something caught my eye. At the foot of the bed, between some boxes lay a head covered in grey hair. It may be hindsight playing games with my memories, but as I looked at it, I distinctly remember it shifted slightly, and even now I’m certain I heard a little dragging noise at the same moment. I grabbed John’s shirt. He looked through the keyhole and saw the head, and we both ran.

When we arrived home, we were laughing our heads off.. I suppose at that age we didn’t really understand what we’d seen. I told my parents, John told his parents, and we both told our grandmother. We’re not sure if anyone believed us.

1959

TRANGIE, NSW is where my dad was born and raised. It is still a tiny town and back in the 1950s it was a village less than half the size. My dad, Phil is the third eldest with five other siblings: four brothers and a sister.

Way back then, there was a family friend affectionately named Old Jack, who lived alone far out of town and used to make the trip into town only monthly or so, in an old horse drawn cart. He was in his 70s and when times got tough on his own, he would come to stay with my father’s family.

One such time was when there was a drought, and the rainwater in the old man’s water tank had run out. He ended up staying at my father’s house for weeks, waiting for enough rain to fill his tank, so he could move back out there. Then, within the space of two days, enough rain fell to cause the river to flood, drown sheep and wash roads away. They weren’t sure if there’d be enough water in the tank for the old man though, so my father’s parents asked if he and his brother Norman, would go out to check the water level in the tank.

They rode out there on a horse, and as the roads were very muddy and chewed from cars and lorries, the going was slow. They had left around lunchtime and had played around on the way, stopping to climb trees, chase rabbits and throw mud at each other. So it was late afternoon (around 5pm) before they arrived at the front gate. Seeing that the sun would soon set, they thought they should check the tank and get moving. They would be home by 9 or 10pm if they didn’t fart about anymore.

The tank was high on a stand, and the ladder was rusted to bits, unclimbable. Phil had to stand on Norman’s shoulders to get a grip on the top of the tank and pull himself up. From the ground, Norman looked up and asked how full the tank was. Phil was peering into the tank, with his head inside, while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Suddenly Phil recoiled, almost falling from the tank and half jumped, half fell down and shouted to his brother, “LET’S GO! LET’S GO NOW!” His eyes were wide with terror and his face, powdery white. Norman didn’t want to leave until he had seen what was in the tank too, but Phil was terrified and ran to get the horse.

Norman found a way onto the tank from the roof of the house, and after looking inside, he also half fell off the tank in his mad scramble to get away.

They arrived home that night at around 9pm streaked with tears and mud, two little boys haunted by something that they would never forget as long as they lived. But never, even to this day, have they told anyone what was in the water tank.