I was 19, driving around town with a friend sometime after midnight, talking and listening to music. We drive past this road with a signpost to an area neither of us heard of despite both of us living in town our whole lives. I asked if she wanted to see where the road went, she said yes so I pull a u-turn and off we go.
It’s a paved road, heavy trees on each side and a few houses. Nothing unusual for either of us, I was living on a street like that at the time. Anyway within about five minutes, the conversation just kind of stops. And a few minutes after that, I start to get an uneasy feeling. Then we passed a kangaroo on the side of the road. It remained perfectly still, just turning its head to watch us drive past and I got the distinct impression it was standing guard.
After that, I just got more and more anxious. I ended up turning to my friend and saying ‘This is going to sound stupid, but can you -‘
She was already taking her seatbelt off. ‘I’ll lock the back doors.’
We kept following the road even after that because we’re stubborn and don’t know when to admit defeat. It was at least half an hour (because my 60 minute cassette tape had flipped over twice) between pulling onto the paved road and coming to a sign saying ‘Dirt road ahead.’ By this stage I felt physically sick and my skin was crawling. Without a word, I did the quickest three point turn I was able to do and we headed back down the road. The closer we got back to the turn off, the better I felt until we were back on the main road where I felt like I could breathe easily again.
We told a few people about it, got brushed off mostly. We didn’t even drive past that turn off without flinching or shuddering for a few months - the feeling of dread had been that strong. Then about six months later, she turns to me out of nowhere and said ‘Let’s drive it during the day.’
So we went. My friend has both her phone and mine on her lap with emergency numbers punched in, we’re playing upbeat pop music to try and keep us calm. It took us less than 5 minutes to reach the dirt road and on checking the odometer, the paved section was only 1 kilometre long. Once again, we got out of there. Have never been back.
No idea what the hell was going on that night, but I can say with certainty that we were not meant to be there. Even 25 years later if someone mentions the area on the sign post, we shudder and recently I turned to her out of nowhere and said ‘Hey was that you with me on the road where -‘
‘Yes. And I don’t want to talk about it.’.
It’s a paved road, heavy trees on each side and a few houses. Nothing unusual for either of us, I was living on a street like that at the time. Anyway within about five minutes, the conversation just kind of stops. And a few minutes after that, I start to get an uneasy feeling. Then we passed a kangaroo on the side of the road. It remained perfectly still, just turning its head to watch us drive past and I got the distinct impression it was standing guard.
After that, I just got more and more anxious. I ended up turning to my friend and saying ‘This is going to sound stupid, but can you -‘
She was already taking her seatbelt off. ‘I’ll lock the back doors.’
We kept following the road even after that because we’re stubborn and don’t know when to admit defeat. It was at least half an hour (because my 60 minute cassette tape had flipped over twice) between pulling onto the paved road and coming to a sign saying ‘Dirt road ahead.’ By this stage I felt physically sick and my skin was crawling. Without a word, I did the quickest three point turn I was able to do and we headed back down the road. The closer we got back to the turn off, the better I felt until we were back on the main road where I felt like I could breathe easily again.
We told a few people about it, got brushed off mostly. We didn’t even drive past that turn off without flinching or shuddering for a few months - the feeling of dread had been that strong. Then about six months later, she turns to me out of nowhere and said ‘Let’s drive it during the day.’
So we went. My friend has both her phone and mine on her lap with emergency numbers punched in, we’re playing upbeat pop music to try and keep us calm. It took us less than 5 minutes to reach the dirt road and on checking the odometer, the paved section was only 1 kilometre long. Once again, we got out of there. Have never been back.
No idea what the hell was going on that night, but I can say with certainty that we were not meant to be there. Even 25 years later if someone mentions the area on the sign post, we shudder and recently I turned to her out of nowhere and said ‘Hey was that you with me on the road where -‘
‘Yes. And I don’t want to talk about it.’.