Ghostly goings on in Hastings [Hawkes Bay Today]

An alleged ghost sighting in the Hawke’s Bay Today Hastings office has inspired a raft of claims surrounding other potentially haunted buildings in the city.

A contract cleaner was working in the Hastings office on Thursday night when she was “notified about a presence in your building”.

She had been working in the building for a few weeks but could not manage to finish her Thursday night shift as the presence, which was not pleasant, scared her out of the building, she said in a message to the paper.

“I will never return to the building as this presence did not want me there. I hope the next person does not experience the same thing for it’s a horrifying thing to go through.”
Hawke’s Bay historian Michael Fowler said part of the Hawke’s Bay Today building, the brick section on the corner of Karamu Road and Queen St, survived the 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake but no one died inside at the time of the disaster.
 

Darby Ryan was a popular reporter at the Hawke’s Bay Tribune working at the newspaper office at the time of the 1931 earthquake. He died during the quake, hit by a falling clock tower while standing on the corner of Queen St and Russell St where he was waiting for an interview that morning.

Mr Fowler said initial thoughts that the tower building of the current newspaper office may have been built on a morgue proved incorrect as pictures showed nothing on the site before the office’s construction in the 1960s.

“But down the road, where Forbes and Co use to be, there is an art shop now and the top floor of that building is reputed to be haunted,” he said. “There’s been a long-time rumour about something being up there.”

Messages left on social media websites suggested there were also ghosts at the Hawke’s Bay Opera House in Hastings including a report that said one often looked out of a top floor, small window of the historic building towards St Joseph’s School.

Other popular places for ghost sightings include the former Napier Prison, the former Napier Hospital site, certain homes on Napier Hill, cemeteries and the old Waipukurau Hospital which closed in 1995. 

Lawrence Gullery

One comment

  1. Maraea White

    Hi my name is Maraea White (real name) I have lived in Hastings, H.B since 1982 – 2004. Now living in Auckland, I love love love what you’s do and believe me I thoroughly understand what you’s do.
    In Hastings heading towards Napier passing through Omahu, then to a small community called Waiohi, just before Taradale, there is a bridge beneath this bridge is a river called the Ngaruroa. It is at this particular place that I had seen maori warriors standing on the bank along the river. Very old from the early 17th century, this I know because of what they were wearing, nothing European they looked fierce. What freaked me out was that they knew that I could see them and they were moving straight towards me, I was with a friend and he could feel the energy it was so strong, he just bolted on me, but I knew they couldn’t cross the water. I was stuck to the ground, it was when I realized they couldn’t cross over the water, that this one warrior just stopped and stared at me. He wanted to make contact, he looked so brutally aggressive, but I was surprised to find myself very calm. Having been freaked out just seconds before, there were many warriors [they had Taiaha’s and Patu’s] weapons that’s how I knew them to be warriors. When this one warrior stopped and it was at this point he knew that I knew they couldn’t cross over the river, they all stopped and moved behind him. Now I’m a maori but I can’t speak the language or understand it, but what he said was “they need to leave the river alone” in maori, honestly I understood every single word that came out his mouth. Then they all turned and moved up the river, the time and I feel the need to put this in was 9nish in the evening and it was a clear night, in Waiohi there is a old burial site on a hill, where most of these warriors are buried. I haven’t told anyone this till now, my friend was sitting in the car with the doors locked, he just said to me what the F was that, he felt fear like he has never felt before.

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