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Riding with the hearse men, by David Wilson - 18th February 2005
(Credit: The Age)

With impeccably neat, concentric streets and an aura of calm, Canberra seems like a byword for boredom. But the city is as murky and mysterious as the depths of Lake Burley Griffin at its heart.

Well, it appears mysterious when seen through the eyes of Elvira, a 1967 Cadillac hearse commandeered for eternity by the Sydney-based firm Destiny Tours. (Destiny also runs tours in its home city with Elvira's sister, Morticia, a 1962 Cadillac.) The hearse transports people on a 90-minute tour of the city's dark side, taking in 20 sinister sites.

"There's a bit of everything: some ghosts, some history, some unique oddball-type stuff," says the "crypto-naturalist" guide, Tim the Yowie Man, whose name will be forever linked to his quest for a yeti-like creature said to inhabit Australia.

In contrast, the driver, Allan Levinson, is a soft-spoken character who calls himself the Hearse Whisperer. But Levinson enjoys the glamour: the sight of Elvira turns heads, he says. In fact, he adds, "they twist right off"'.

Maybe they should, because the six-metre-long vehicle could be haunted. Some clients sense more than the statutory eight people inside. The extra passenger, who sits behind the driver, is apparently an old man called Tom, who might have been a chauffeur during Elvira's Californian youth.

The haunted hearse stops at the original seat of power, Old Parliament House. Some security guards refuse to work there, troubled by the sound of MPs debating long after hours and uncanny events from wandering trolleys to flying walkie-talkies.

In the mid-1990s, Tim and a ghost-busting team investigated the building and their electro-magnetic field detector supposedly rose about half a metre above the table it lay on. Tim says the culprit may have been the clerk of the house, who had a heart attack and died in the building not long after it opened in 1927.

Another official remembered on the tour is Ben Chifley. The working-class hero, prime minister of Australia from 1945 to 1949, lived in the nearby Hotel Kurrajong, then a bed and breakfast. Since his death at the Kurrajong in 1951, Chifley has been seen gazing from his room towards Old Parliament House; perhaps he hankers after another term.

Had Chifley chosen to live in the landscaped grandeur of the Prime Minister's Lodge, he could apparently have slipped into the House easily via a secret tunnel network. Today the Federal Government denies the network story, but Tim insists that, until "very recently", before the space became occupied by offices, it existed. "Wide enough to drive a golf cart through," he claims. The complex apparently constituted a national emergency shelter.

Doubtless, Abdullah Al-Ghamdi, alias Saudi Bill, knew the truth. The Emirates diplomat prowled Canberra in the 1990s, allegedly accosting local women with money for sex. In 1998, Saudi Bill, 54, was found at home with his throat slashed and more than 30 stab wounds. Two years later, the suspects - two men and a woman - were acquitted on a murder charge.

Elvira glides by the scene of the killing, Oakford Apartments in the suburb of Kingston. Tim doubts whether the flat's present tenants are aware of its history.

The story behind Duntroon Military College is hard for its occupants to ignore, thanks to Sophia Campbell's ghost. She was the daughter of a 19th-century shipping merchant who lived in the original homestead on the site. Campbell, 29, died in 1885 when she fell or was pushed from an upstairs window.

Her lingering spirit apparently messes up the bed in her old room and may manifest itself in other ways. On a recent visit to the room, Tim's nose suddenly began bleeding profusely, which unnerved everybody on the tour.

Regular highlights on Elvira's journey include a poltergeist at the Australian War Memorial, a $10,000 piece of art buried beneath Commonwealth Park, a hidden cave in the business district, an embassy bedevilled by screams and a funeral parlour once used as a cover by spies.

Elvira tours, costing $49 a person, are held on the last Friday and Saturday of every month, except December. Departures are at 7pm, 9pm and 11pm. See www.destinytours.com.au/canberra.htm or phone 9943 0167 or 0414 232 244.

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