Sydney myths
Sydney is littered with urban legends and colourful tales. We dig into some of the most elaborate yarns to decide if they are true or not... By Claire Finneran
There’s a panther on the loose in the Blue Mountains
This one pops up on every ‘Sydney myth’ list on the web. All over the Blue Mountains and parts of Western Sydney, people have claimed sighting a giant black cat roaming around. The ‘Blue Mountains Panther’ is rumoured to be an escaped veteran from a private zoo owned by the eccentric billionaire Emmanuel Margolin in the ’80s, though panther-attributed livestock deaths go back nearly a century. In recent times, bushwalkers and residents have claimed to have spotted the big cat in bushland. A sighting happens about once a year.
True or false?
Who really knows? Firsthand accounts have only ever been supported by grainy or outof-focus photos. It’s one of those Bigfoot situations – it could be real, or could be an extreme zoom shot of a black cat in the distance. Panther-spotters are a passionate bunch, though: there have been books published and databases that log sightings kicking around for years. One article in The Australian even claimed that analysis of a feline stool sample in Lithgow showed wallaby fur and bones, and we all know panthers would totally nosh on wallabies.
Secret underground transport tunnels once ferried patients to Rozelle asylum
Callan Park, which will be home to the Sydney College of the Arts campus until next year, has a storied past. Its sandstone buildings and expansive grounds were originally a mental health facility. The myth that echoed through these halls is that there was an underground tunnel system that transported unsightly patients from ship ports to the Callan Park facility. It’s rumoured that an intricate water tunnel system stretched from as far as Sydney Harbour to the Rozelle-based hospital and was used to move the patients underground to keep them out of view.
True or false?
There is an underground part of the facility, but no record of these apparent
The eels use a network of ponds, streams and drains
water-transport channels. It’s not impossible, though; patients weren’t treated so well back in 1878, when Callan Park first opened, and common practice at the time involved chaining up the ‘insane’.
Centennial Park’s pond eels migrate to New Caledonia to spawn
If you’ve ever peered into the murky waters of a pond in Centennial Park, chances are you’ve seen one of their long, slimy occupants flopping about. The eels apparently migrate as far as New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands to lay their eggs. It seems impossible, but the longfin eel supposedly uses a network of connecting ponds, streams, stormwater drains and a little bit of slithering over land to eventually hit Botany Bay and then the open ocean. Once their journey is completed, the eels spawn on the salty coastlines of the South Pacific and die. The exceptionally far-fetched part is that the baby eels hatch and without any parental guidance find their way all the way back to the ponds of Centennial Park.
True or false?
Scientists have not yet fitted a longfin eel with a tracking device, but multiple studies into the migration of the park’s eels have shown this to be true! The eels have special sensors on their noses that help their bodies transform and gills expand for salty water, and returning baby eels have been studied gliding back through the channels to the Centennial Park ponds.
Wakehurst Parkway has a car-haunting ghost
Bloodthirsty rumours surround this exceptionally dark road on the Northern Beaches, but the standout tale is of a ghost who hops into the backseat of unsuspecting cars driving down it after midnight. Stories vary, but most centre on a section of the road near Oxford Falls, where it’s been reported that a young girl or older nun opens a car’s back door and compels drivers to crash. The apparition allegedly has piercing green eyes that torment the driver via the rearview mirror, and there are accounts of the spirit invoking a need to return after you’ve encountered them once, forcing drivers to come back to crash again and again...
True or false?
Well, do you believe in ghosts? People claim to have seen the nun/girl spectre in their cars or on the side of the Parkway, but there isn’t any hard evidence. And frighteningly, as reported by The Daily Telegraph, many bodies have been discovered in the surrounding forests and gullies, so…
There’s a giant lake under Hyde Park
Did you know that St James Station has a whole other level of secret platforms? Built in the 1920s, the additional platforms were part of a proposed Bondi and Northern Beaches line, but they were never used. Tour groups and urban explorers have documented a lot of the tunnel networks, and the jewel in the subterranean crown is an alleged massive lake that spreads out below Hyde Park. The lake is said to be up to six metres deep in parts with thick, dark, stagnant water. The roots of the park’s trees are said to drop down from above giving this lake a particularly sinister aesthetic.
True or false?
Partially true. There is a flooded portion of the unused St James tunnel network that stretches for about a kilometre. It’s also potentially part of Sydney’s original Tank Stream, the fresh-water source that stretched from Bridge and Pitt Streets to Hyde Park, which used to be swampland. You can take a tour of the Tank Stream (now a storm-water drain), but it doesn’t go all the way to the mysterious underground lake, unfortunately.
Tamarama Beach is an elephant graveyard
In 1906, Tamarama Beach hosted a theme park called Wonderland City. There was a steam-powered rollercoaster, a seal pond and an elephant named Princess Alice with a saddle so that kids could ride her. Princess Alice was moved from the Wonderland City site when it closed in 1912 to a mansion owned by the Wirth family in Coogee. She spent the rest of her years performing in the Wirth Family Circus, and it’s rumoured she was eventually euthanised and buried under Tamarama Beach.
True or false?
The most recent mention of Princess Alice arose from the sale of the old Coogee mansion ‘Ocean View’ in 2009. During the auction, the agent boasted that the historical Wirth family backyard contained the remains of Tamarama’s favourite elephant. The mansion fetched over $10 million, and perhaps if you ask nicely and bring your own shovel the owners of 370 Alison Road might let you have a dig.
A shark spat out a human arm
Coogee used to have an aquarium that was home to a massive tiger shark for a week in 1935. Caught three kilometres off shore by fishermen, the shark was on public display in a tank when families witnessed it vomit up a human arm. The shark was killed and an autopsy showed it had in fact eaten a smaller shark who, it is believed, swallowed the limb. A tattoo and fingerprints were used to identify the arm’s owner, and a huge investigation led to the police convicting a murderer who later confessed he had tossed it into the sur f in Maroubra.
True or false?
By all accounts this is true, and why hasn’t there been an Underbelly: Shark Arm yet? The arm belonged to former boxer Jim Smith, who was in the midst of some dodgy dealings with convicted forger Patrick Brady when he was murdered. Brady admitted to dumping the body in Gunnamatta Bay, but he showed the severed arm to one Reginald Holmes, claiming he would meet the same fate if he didn’t fork up owed money. He then tossed the arm into Maroubra, where the shark(s) came into the story.
There are bodies entombed in the Harbour Bridge pylons
The rumour is that three men slipped into the bottom of the brick pylons as they were being built, and because of time pressure and their lowly status the bodies were never retrieved and remain sealed inside. There are at least 16 recorded deaths during the Harbour Bridge’s construction, but it’s believed the poor pylon victims aren’t part of this figure to keep the morbid figures down.
True or false?
Because it was never officiated, it’s hard to say. And the prospect of entombed workers in the pylons isn’t a great selling point for the hundreds of tourists who clamber up the Bridge every day. We’re going to guess it’s a myth, though you can never tell just how many bodies are buried under the entirety of Sydney’s colonial infrastructure.