HGB Ep. 497 - New Zealand's Vulcan Hotel

Moment in Oddity -  Le Passage du Gois (Suggested by: Karen Miller)

In France, there is a unique bridge called Le Passage du Gois that connects the French mainland to an island called Noirmoutier. This bridge floods on a daily basis, making it impassable. The length of the bridge is an impressive 4.5 km. This is a world famous natural wonder that floods twice in every 24 hour period. The average depth of the water that covers the bridge varies between 4 to 13 feet and the rising sea levels occur quickly. There have been digital signs that let drivers know if the road is currently safe to pass but there are some that tempt fate and every year there are reports of people becoming stranded or even dying. Rescue towers have been erected to give a safe haven for stranded motorists to climb up and wait for the sea levels to recede. This is not a recommended stretch of road for the common tourist due to its hazardous nature however that doesn't keep them away. One thing is for sure, a nearly 3 mile long bridge that becomes impassable twice a day due flooding, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - The Sinking of SS Andrea Doria

In the month of July, on the 26th, in 1956, Italian luxury liner Andrea Doria sank. The SS Andrea Doria was a flagship of the Italian Line and had the capacity for about 1,240 passengers and 560 crew. Amongst its luxuries were 3 swimming pools and many works of art. Its maiden voyage sailed from Genoa, Italy, to New York City. This proved quite popular so the Andrea Doria crossed the Atlantic several times before that fateful day. The ship departed Genoa on the 17th. As the Andrea was sailing south of Nantucket, her radar picked up an approaching vessel, the MS Stockholm some 17 nautical miles away. The Swedish passenger liner also detected the Andrea Doria. Both ships made adjustments to their course to widen the passing distance between them. Unfortunately, mistakes were made reading the radar and while the Stockholm chose the standard pass protocol of port to port, or left side to left side, the Andrea Doria decided to pass on the starboard side. There was heavy fog in the area of the Italian liner and once the ships had visual contact they were only 2 miles apart. With the speed at which each liner was sailing, the collision was unavoidable. At approximately 11:10pm the Stockholm struck the starboard side of the Andrea, perforating 7 of her 11 decks. Even though the Swedish liner's bow was crushed, it remained seaworthy. The Andrea Doria however, was not so fortunate. Within minutes of the collision, the Doria began listing hard to its starboard side thus prohibiting access to the ships port side lifeboats. Although 51 people were ultimately killed, this number was relatively low due to other ships rushing to the SOS call transmitted by the SS Andrea Doria. The collision causes cited were heavy fog, high speeds in poor visibility and incorrect use of radar. 

New Zealand's Vulcan Hotel

There are two things that bring people to St Bathans in New Zealand: gold and fossils. The St Bathans fauna bears dozens of different kinds of fossils. The small town itself was once a center of the Otago Gold Rush and one of the leftover locations from that time is the Vulcan Hotel. A painted lady might have lost her life at the hotel and today, people claim her spirit haunts one of the rooms there. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Vulcan Hotel. 

The Central Otago area of New Zealand is rich in sedimentary formations and fossils. In the lower Bannockburn Formation is something called the St Bathans fauna, which is a cache of fossilised prehistoric animals formed by deposits in a shallow, freshwater lake. Many tourists and scientists flock to St Bathans to see and study the fauna. One of these has been called the Saint Bathans Mammal because no one is sure what exactly this mammal once was, but it is extinct now. This is a curious species as bats, cetaceans and seals seem to be the only flightless creatures to exist in New Zealand because other mammals had to be introduced by humans. So how this thing got here is a mystery. 

Close to the town of St Bathans a fossil layer has been exposed along the Manuherikia River. This is the remnant of the prehistoric Lake Manuherikia. There is a lake near town that was man-made during the Otago Gold Rush named Blue Lake. This is a well known lake that formed when gold miners turned the 394-foot Kildare Hill into a 551-foot deep pit. After mining operations halted, the hole filled with water and it gets its name from the distinctive blue color of that water that is created by minerals from the surrounding rocks. Tourists love to camp near it and swim.

Gold was first found in New Zealand starting in 1842. This was just a small quantity, so when the gold rushes started in Australia and California, many settlers left the island. Commercial interests in New Zealand needed to keep people there, so they offered a prze of 500 pounds to anyone who could find payable quantites of gold. A timber merchant did just that in 1852 and a brief gold rush was launched. The Maori of New Zealand must have chuckled to themselves as they watched these fair-skinned men running around looking for gold that they already knew about and since they had no use for the ore, they probably wondered what all the excitement was about. The Maori preferred bone, obsidian and greenstone because they could fashion weapons from those materials. One area that they knew was flush with gold ore was Central Otago. One European did manage to stumble upon a small find in 1851, but it wouldn't be until 1861 that a rush would ensue.

Gold was discovered at Welshmans Gully in 1863. This is today the town of Cambrians and sits about four miles from St Bathans. The name was inspired by the Welsh coal miners that worked both the gold and coal pits here. Australian prospectors led by Irishman A.G. Peyman found more gold a few miles north-east of Welshmans Gully and within four months, there were two hundred miners at the site. They built a town and called it Dunstan Creek, which would later be changed to St Bathans. Those early beginnings were rough as one visitor described this as being "a pigsty on the edge of town, with an eye-watering smell, and piles of rubbish surrounding the town." The description isn't surprising considering that many of these mining towns were full of temporary structures made from canvas or calico fabric that covered timber frames. If a town proved viable, more permanent buildings were built from timber and concrete. And while many miners flocked to these towns, entrepreneurs came as well to establish shops, banks and hotels and most of them made more than the miners. Women who came and worked alongside their husbands were referred to as "Colonial Helpmeets." If a woman became widowed, she received ownership rights.

The Otago Gold Rush lasted until 1864, but this didn't end prospecting. Gold extraction became a more industrialised-mechanical process and gold fields were reworked. Chinese laborers were invited to come help with this reworking. The first commercially successful gold dredge in the world was developed in New Zealand and named the Dunedin for the New Zealand town. Throughout this time, St Bathans, which had been named for the Scottish Borders village of Abbey St Bathans, grew and by 1887, there were 2,000 miners in the area. Many buildings from the start of St. Bathans still stand today. There are many cottages that had served as homes for the various merchants in town. The timbered kauri post office opened in 1909 and is still in operation today. There are a couple of churchs, St. Patricks Catholic Church and St. Alban the Martyr, which was one of the first prefabricated buildings in New Zealand and was made from corrugated iron.

The most famous leftover building from the gold rush days is the Vulcan Hotel. The man who built the hotel was Samuel Hanger. Hanger had been born in 1830 in Hobart Town, Tasmania, Australia. Hanger married Mary Pattison in 1852 and they had eleven children. When Hanger heard about the gold in Otago, he decided to go, leaving behind a pregnant Mary and the two children they had at the time. He traveled via the ship Aldinga in November of 1862. In 1864, he sent for his family to join him. Samuel didn't work in St Bathans as a miner. His skill was blacksmithing and he set up a calico tent from which he supplied the miners with sluice pipes and drink. Hanger built his family a stone cottage that still stands in the town today. Even though the main part of the gold rush ended in 1864, there were still many people living in and traveling to St Bathans. Hanger decided to open a hotel.

For many of us, when we hear the name Vulcan, we immediately think of Star trek and the character Spock. Vulcans were logical beings who didn't experience emotions and Spock was half Vulcan. But the name of the Vulcan Hotel clearly wasn't inspired by this because it dates back to the 1800s. The Vulcan the hotel is named for was the Roman god of fire, Vulcan. Metalworking was one of his areas of expertise and since Hanger had been a blacksmith, he was inspired to use the god's name for the hotel he decided to open. Hanger opened the Vulcan Hotel in 1869 despite the fact that there were already thirteen hotels in St. Bathans. The original Vulcan Hotel was a corrugated iron building with two doors and and two windows. Five years later, he expanded and built an annex across the street that featured a billiards room and more rooms. Samuel died in 1879 and left Mary to run the hotel and she did that for several years. In 1888, she decided it was too much for her and none of the Hanger children were interested in the hotel business. But her son David's father-in-law John Thurlow was interested and he bought the Vulcan Hotel with his brother William.

The men had barely had the hotel for a year when it was damaged by a fire. They repaired the Vulcan and in 1899, they extended the billiard room annex by building on stables. William Thurlow died in 1902, so the license was transferred to a man named Patrick Sexton who held it for five years and then transferred it to Gilbert O’Hara in 1907. A couple by the name of McDevitts held the license for the Vulcan from 1912 to 1922. During their tenure, the Vulcan Hotel was destroyed by fire and it was decided to rebuild it with red brick. The Vulcan ironically had major issues with fire. In 1931, it would again be destroyed by fire. 

The Ballarat Hotel was built in 1882 from mud brick and stood just three sections to the south of the Vulcan Hotel. It had sat empty for a while, so when the Vulcan burned down in 1931, the license was transferred to the Ballarat Hotel building and renamed the Vulcan Hotel. The sign was repainted out front with a shamrock between Vulcan and Hotel. This shamrock is a throwback to the rivalry the Irish settlers from St.Bathans had with the Welsh settlers from Cambrian. The rivalry was dubbed the War Of The Roses locally and got very bitter. In 1934, it was decided that mining operations should stop because there was a real fear that the main street and buildings would fall into the hole that eventually became Blue Lake. In 1974, the billiards room and stables were sold for use as a holiday home. In 1987, a number of locals formed a company to buy the Vulcan to keep it in local hands, until the new owners Gerry and Denise Shaw purchased the Hotel in June 2021. Sue Ingram managers the Vulcan. The building is registered as a Category I historic place by Heritage New Zealand.

The Vulcan Hotel is thought to be one of the most haunted buildings in New Zealand. The most active room is Room 1 and that is because a legend claims that a lady of the evening that worked in St. Bathans, was killed in this room when this was the Ballarat Hotel, some time in the 1880s. Her name was Rose or Rosie or sometimes she is referred to as The Rose. To add insult to injury, the reason for the murder is thought to be that Rosie had a small quantity of gold that miners had given her and the murderer took that and left town. From that time, there have been many reports of lights going on and off by themselves, disembodied footsteps, doors creaking and locking themselves, cold spots, sightings of full-bodied apparitions, groaning in the hallways, kettles boiling without being turned on and a mysterious shadow figure seen at the foot of the bed in Room 1. Rosie's apparition has been seen several times reclining on a chaise lounge in the dining room. Women usually don't have any issues staying in Room 1, but men reportedly get held down and sometimes throttled.

The manager of the hotel, Sue Ingram, said of the spirit Rosie, "She locks and unlocks door, moves things about and behaves like a general toe rag. Right now, she is generally well-behaved, but she has her moments. We had a new carpet installed in November, and she didn’t seem to like that at all. Maybe it was the color, maybe it was the disruption, but she was very active and a real nuisance. People sleeping in the room have felt her sitting on the bed, there’s been an extra weight. Others have felt her on their feet. When she’s about, the room gets cold. One of the guests was unphased by Rosie’s presence and waking up said ‘I know it’s you Rosie’. At which point she left the room." 

Royce Clarke, a co-partner of the hotel in 2020, told Debbie Jamison from the website Stuff, "On a previous occasion when he stayed there he was awoken by the electric jug turning on and off by itself during the night. Convinced it was a friend playing a prank, Clark sat with the door ajar and a mirror, but saw no-one moving before the jug started again. The next day he examined the jug and pulled it apart, but was unable to get it to operate independently. 'Then I knew for sure it was her,' he said."

Author of Haunted New Zealand Roadtrip, Mike Wallbank, wrote on Haunted Auckland in 2020 of his stay at the hotel, "There was another story of a female staff member working there one night, who screamed as she saw someone walking through the bar area. They say she was terrified. Royce was working that night and witnessed the look of sheer terror on her face at the time: an image that has remained with him since. More recently – that week in fact – Royce awoke at 2am to a loud clicking sound. It was the kettle jug in the corridor for patrons to make tea and coffee, switching on. Thinking it was a mate of his also staying there, he went back to sleep. The next morning, he questioned it. His mate hadn’t gotten up. Checking the jug, it was still warm. For some reason the jug had turned itself on and boiled. This happened numerous times soon after. The men could find no logical reason for this happening other than one playing a prank on the other and denying it (Royce’s initial assumption towards his mate), which they both swear wasn’t the case. I’m told of a few male patrons reportedly being woken, and held down with hands around their throats, and an overwhelming sense of fear. These are the more common reports. A theory being that The Rose might be getting back at men for causing her death.

The night before I arrived, Royce tells me he had gone around the bar, locking up after a long day – something he does every night. He locked the front door first, then went around shutting windows, drawing the curtains closed and turning off the lights. Before heading to bed he checked the front door one last time, as he always does. The next morning the bar door was found open. The door can only be unlocked and opened from the inside. The lock itself, being of the solid slide-bolt make with a second locking button, is firm and secure and only released from the inside. No one, including myself, could find any reason or answer to this mystery. So, what do we have? Many years of anecdotes from both patrons and staff. Many experiencing the exact same event. Many describing the same details. Could it be just the power of suggestion at play?"

Mike Pole visited the Vulcan Hotel and wrote of his experience there in 2022 on Medium, "It was summer and still perfectly light, and I pulled up beside a pretty laid-back scene. The publicans, husband and wife, were sitting on the chairs outside the pub along with two guests. I parked the car and joined them. They produced my meal and we all shot the breeze for a while, until eventually the guests headed to bed. The husband then went to bed and it was just me and his wife chatting. The next day I wanted to hunt for fossils, so arranged an early breakfast, at 07:00. Eventually she got up to go and told me to find myself a room when I was ready 'Any room except the Number One, or the Number Two — it’s got the guests.' My ears pricked up. 'The Number One?' I asked. 'Oh, I guess you may as well spread yourself out,' she said 'Take the Number one if you want.' The room had a small double-bed against the far wall, and a bed-side table with an alarm clock on the near side of it. There was a window out on to the deserted street. I went to bed, and (unusually for me) fell asleep quickly. In the dead of the night I was woken by being slammed twice into the mattress. There was no fear — just immediate exhilaration. All I could think was: 'Wow — that was the ghost!' I looked at the clock — it was 06: 20, and I could hear music coming down the corridor from the vicinity of the kitchen. Good, I thought, that’s the sound of my breakfast being made. I lay in bed going over and over the ‘experience’ and thinking 'Wow! Wow! Wow! That was the ghost! I’ve experienced the ghost!'

But then …. I realized — 'I’m lying on my left hand side. If I had just looked at the clock, I would have had to have been lying on my right hand side — and I know I haven’t moved at all. And then I opened my eyes. It was pitch black. It was so dark I couldn’t have seen the clock anyway. And there was no music. It was dead quiet. I got up, turned the light on, and checked the time. It was just after three. Confused, I turned the light back off and went back to bed. I didn’t sleep for ages, then did, then woke up about thirty minutes after I said I wanted breakfast. I rushed to the shower then into the dining room. The publican wasn’t too happy of course. As I tucked into breakfast, I tried to redeem myself: 'That ghost.' I said –'people feel someone sit on the bed beside them, don’t they?' 'Yes,' she said, 'but some people get slammed in the mattress. But just last week we had a woman who was woken up by someone playing with all of her toes.'

The best way I can try to describe what I felt was as if someone had lowered a huge electromagnet over the bed (yes, I’d have to have the opposite polarity, but work with me on this one) and then thrown the switch twice in quick succession. If there was a sound to it (and there wasn’t), it would have been a 'WAAARP… WAAARP.' To be absolutely clear — it had a sort of ‘electronic’ nature, but there was no ‘shock’. What I experienced deep in that night was far from my expectations. [Unfortunately] I wasn’t woken up by the spirit of some young woman, good-natured, despite being robbed of her life well over a century before. Rather, what it was, was entirely ‘inhuman’. Of course, it may be entirely unrelated to the ‘ghosts’ other people have experienced for decades, but this seems like too much of a coincidence. Whatever it was that I felt — I have never felt either before or since. Whatever it is giving that Number 1 bedroom a strange reputation, I’m sure I’ve experienced it."

There is another haunted place in St. Bathans. The post office that we mentioned earlier is said to be haunted by an elderly woman, possibly a grandmother, and she usually has two young children with her. It isn't surprising that a town like St. Bathans, which is nearly a ghost town now, would have spirits. There was so much life here with saloons and brothels and mining. Is it possible that some of that former life still continues on in the afterlife? Is the Vulcan Hotel haunted? That is for you to decide!