Puckeys Estate Reserve - History

History

Courtney Puckey, an alchemist who liked salt making, bought the area of land known today as Puckey's Estate by 1905 and set about constructing his saltworks. Puckey's graduation tower stood at 9.15 metres high (30 feet) and used a centuries old process to extract salt. A wind powered pump at the lagoon entrance pumped salt water to the top where it would trickle down through the wooden structure filled with tightly packed tea tree brush-wood branches until it reached several evaporation basins for heating and final salt extraction. Remnants of these basins, Puckey's house, wall and jetty, and the cement base of the tower, are still visible. Puckey had previously experimented with similar saltworks at North Wollongong Beach during the mid 1890s.

There have been many rumors which remain unconfirmed about suspicious deaths, rapes, murders and people who have gone missing in the walkways of Puckey's Estate. The most common of these rumors is one of a young girl, approximately 15 years of age, who was walking home at dusk when she was raped and brutally stabbed by two men in their twenties, who, when finished with her, threw her body into the river, where she drowned. Many people claim to have seen the ghost of the young girl at dusk or sunset, however reports so far have been unconfirmed. Other such stories have arisen about Puckey's such as one about children who call to you as you walk through are said to be the voices of those who have been murdered and never found. People who have gone missing in or near Puckey's Estate are said to have been murdered by the ghosts of those who were not saved nor found in time, if ever.