Would you drive on a road surrounded by bushland where murder victims have been found? A road linked to more than 82 crashes — some resulting in fatality — sitting beside a lagoon with a long history of drownings? oh and its haunted by the two resident ghosts said to appear in the back seat of your car and try and grab your steering wheel to drive you off the road. A road where your radios turn to static, electronics malfunction, and the feeling that something is watching you from the bush. Well thats wake hurst parkway
Hi, I’m Nat… and this is The Midnight Files.
Welcome to WTF Wednesday—where I find something mildly concerning…
and instead of moving on like a normal person, I research it for hours.
So… let’s unpack it together.
Wakehurst Parkway is a 14-kilometre stretch of road running through Sydney’s Northern Beaches, connecting Seaforth to Narrabeen.
And if you’re from Sydney… chances are you’ve heard the stories.
The ghostly woman in white.
The nun standing beside the road.
The ghostly hitcher in the back seat of your car
and the feeling of being watched.
I’ve driven along Wakehurst Parkway myself a few times, usually during the day and even then it feels eerie.
Large sections of the road are surrounded by dense bushland. At night, with the winding roads, poor lighting, fog, blind corners, and isolation… it already feels unsettling before you even know the stories attached to it.
Its not just ghost stories attacked to this road there are real tragedies, drownings, murders, car crashes and centuries of disturbing history over the same stretch of land.
There are countless ghost stories and urban legends connected to Wakehurst Parkway. Most people say their experiences happen late at night or in the early hours of the morning and usually when they’re alone.
Some drivers have reported feeling icy cold hands touching the back of their neck while driving. Others say their radios suddenly turn staticky or decrease or increase suddenly in sound, car doors lock or unlock by themselves, windscreen wipers start unexpectedly, or headlights flickering.
Some people say they don’t actually see anything at all, but instead feel an overwhelming sense of dread or a freezing cold feeling move through the car.
One woman said she refuses to drive Wakehurst Parkway alone after hearing heavy breathing coming from directly behind her while driving at night.
Most common encounters seem to happen near Oxford Falls, or near deep creek.
There so many stories of encounters told from members of the community from paramedics, late-night drivers, police, hikers, and Northern Beaches residents.
The two most famous spirits associated with Wakehurst Parkway are said to be a mysterious nun — or nurse looking ghost and a young woman known as “Kelly.”
Both have reportedly seen sitting in the back seat of people’s cars… or standing silently on the side of the road.
The “nun” has reportedly been seen for more than 50 years.
One man described driving home from work at Manly just after 11pm on a misty night in May 2016.
As he drove over a rise near the 80km/h sign, he noticed a woman standing on the opposite side of the road.
As he slowed down and got closer, he realised she looked ghostly pale and was dressed in an old-fashioned white uniform.
Terrified, he sped up, But when he checked the rear-view mirror moments later… she had vanished completely.
Paranormal filmmaker Bianca Biasi believes the “nun” may not actually be a nun at all.
She believes the sightings may be connected to Manly’s Quarantine Station.
The Quarantine Station operated from the 1830s until 1984 and housed thousands of travellers arriving in Sydney by ship in order to prevent the spread of disease.
Many people died there.
After researching old photographs of the station, Biasi realised the nurses’ uniforms from the early 1900s looked almost identical to descriptions given by people who claimed to have seen the “nun.”
The long white dresses and veils the nurses wore in the 1900s resembled traditional religious habits, which may explain why so many people interpreted the figure as a nun instead of a nurse.
Not to mention that quarantine station is only minutes away from Deep creek and oxford falls.
A former paramedic spoke of stories involving a nun-like apparition appearing suddenly inside vehicles and grabbing steering wheels, forcing drivers toward the trees lining the Parkway. in 2010 a cab driver was said when he was dirving down the parkway he saw a grey silhouette of a thing women sitting on the back seat of his car. She was in a kind of white down and head dress like a Christians nun. He said he couldn’t really make out her face Cleary just the shape and her deep green eyes. He said he made eye contact with her in the rear vison mirror and shocked he slammed his breaks on.
Another night the same cab driver said he picked up a female passenger and he had driven before and who aksed to be taken to the same on the road where the apparition had appeared in his car. Then whats really shocking is he claims that he later found out the female passenger he picked had died a few week prior to her getting in his cab
The second major legend is “Kelly
According to the legend, Kelly died in a car accident on Wakehurst Parkway sometime in the 1970s. I really tried to find more information about where the legend of Kelly came from and the car crash she was supposedly in, in 1970 but I couldn’t find any record or proper documentation, only people passing down the legend.
People say she appears late at night on the side of the road, usually near Oxford Falls, trying to get drivers to stop and pick her up. She is dressed in all white and sometimes has a white veil covering her face and other times she has visible injuries to her face.
One woman reportedly described driving along the Parkway during the 1970s near Oxford Falls when she saw a young girl in white standing beside the road. Feeling concerned, she pulled over and allowed the girl into the car. The women and Kelly chatted for most of the drive, I would love to know what it was they spoke about. And when they reached Narrabeen and she glanced into her rear-view mirror… the girl was gone. No door had opened. No footsteps were heard. She had simply vanished from the back seat.
Kellys story seems to follow the classic urban legend of a vanishing hitchhiker. Paranormal investigator Biasi later claimed she had interviewed around one hundred people who believed they had experienced encounters connected to the figure.
Many versions claim that if Kelly appears in your back seat, you must tell her to leave. If you don’t, she will supposedly take control of the vehicle and force it off the road.
Some people believe she isn’t evil… but traumatised. Like she’s trapped there.
Still trying to escape the place where she died.
Some people say she appears standing directly in the middle of the road and some claim to have driven through her. One person told their story of an encounter in the 1990s, they saw Kelly standing on the road on Wakehurst Parkway but on the Seaforth side. They with friends coming back from Manly around 2am. As they came around a corner she was standing in the middle of the road and they said they drove straight through her. They honestly felt like they had hit someone. They slammed on their brakes and looked back and she was just standing there looking at us from the road. They said it was the scariest thing they had ever been through
A man was driving through Wakehurst parkway and picked Kelly up but this time she had severe facial injuries and he found her wandering beside the road at night asking for help. Concerned about her injures he went straight to Mona Vale Hospital but when he got to the hospital his back seat was now empty and young women had disappeared.
Another person said they had similar experience but they went into the emergency department and sort the help of nurse and they both went out to the car together to get the injured women but when they returned to the car there was nobody inside.
Even hikers exploring the trails near Deep Creek Reserve have described unsettling experiences. One woman claimed she had been picnicking with friends near the reserve when they began hearing strange noises in the darkness and developed an overwhelming feeling they were being watched. She turns around to where she felt like something was watching her to see a flickering light in the bush that turned into a line of flames stretching several metres across the ground and moving toward them. They all freaked out quickly packed up as much as they could before fleeing the area leaving some items behind. The lady claims that she never returned back to Wakehurst parkway ever again.
Drivers have seen a pedestrian crossings near Oxford Falls suddenly activating in the middle of the night despite nobody being there to press the button.
Around 15 years ago a group of friends were driving along the road around midnight in two separate cars and pulled over into a small car park along the parkway to stretched their legs and when they got out of the car they said they heard a female scream out Help me help me from the bush surrounding them, they all got back in their cars and got out of there as Quickley as possible.
Others describe feelings of overwhelming dread, sudden mechanical issues with their vehicles, or the sensation that someone is watching them. A person recalls about seven years ago driving back from Manly on the Parkway about 11pm and suddenly their automatic transmission started playing up in their fairly new SUV. The lights were flashing on and off and couldn’t change the gear. So they really felt like they were going to break down, then as soon as they drove off the parkway onto another road the issues seem to resolve themself.
There are so many more accounts of paranormal experiences on the Wakehurst parkway, surely with this many people all having different encounters must mean something spooky is going on.
When you look into the history of Wakehurst parkway it easy to understand why the surrounding bushland and road may be haunted because it has a very dark history.

I mean there are several high profile murders associated with the park way.
One of Australia’s most infamous child murder cases became linked forever to Wakehurst Parkway.
In 1960, 8-year-old Graeme was murdered and all because his family won the lottery. a crime that would change how Australians view child safety. .
Graeme lived with his family in the Sydney suburb of Bondi and attended Scots College Preparatory School in Bellevue Hill.
His parents had won more than £100,000 in the Opera House Lottery which was an enormous amount of money back, equivalent to millions of dollars today. Back then lottery winners’ names and home addresses even occupations sometimes were published publicly in newspapers, which meant suddenly everyone knew the Thorne family, how much money they won and where they lived. What terrible idea it was to post someone full name and home address for everyone to see that just crazy.
On July 7th, Graeme left his home in Bondi go to school following his usual route… At first his parents thought maybe he just missed the bus but he never arrived at school or came home. Then witnesses came forward apparently seeing a man talking to Graeme at the bus stop.
Soon after, a ransom note appeared demanding £25,000 for his safe return. The kidnapper calle d himself Mr Brown and instructed the family not to involve police and organised complicated ransom drop instructions involving public phone boxes and train stations across Sydney, including near Wakehurst Parkway.
Witnesses near the ransom drop locations reported seeing a distinctive blue Ford Customline station wagon acting suspiciously around the area. Police began tracing vehicles that matched the description and eventually identified one belonging to a quiet factory worker named Stephen Bradley.
As the investigation intensified, items belonging to Graeme began appearing near Wakehurst Parkway and around the Seaforth bushland. His school case was discovered beside the Parkway, followed days later by additional belongings nearby. The discoveries terrified Sydney residents and fuelled one of the largest police investigations Australia had seen at the time.
But tragically, Graeme had already been murdered shortly after the kidnapping. Ten days later, his body was discovered wrapped in a run in vacant scrubland at Seaforth, not far from the ransom exchange locations. When the news broke that graeme had been murderer, this brutal reality confronted the nation of this cruel and senseless murder.
Then came the forensic breakthrough. Detectives painstakingly examined microscopic forensic evidence collected from the rug and surrounding materials. Investigators traced dog hairs, plant fragments, fibres, bottle-blonde human hairs, and even particles of distinctive pink mortar back to Stephen Bradley’s home.
When detectives searched Bradley’s car, they discovered microscopic fibres, dog hairs, and flakes of paint that matched evidence connected to the kidnapping. At the time, this kind of forensic investigation was groundbreaking and became one of the first major Australian cases solved using trace evidence.
Investigators later realised Bradley had carefully planned the abduction after seeing the Thorne family’s lottery win publicly announced in newspapers.
Bradley was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, and the case permanently changed Australia — after Graeme’s murder, lottery winners’ identities were no longer publicly released.
then, in 1994, another deeply disturbing case became linked to the bushland surrounding Deep Creek Reserve near Wakehurst Parkway.
Thirty-four-year-old Stephen Dempsey disappeared after visiting the home of a man named Richard Leonard. The two men were known to each other, and during an altercation Leonard shot Dempsey with a compound bow and arrow — a brutal and highly unusual murder weapon that shocked investigators when details later emerged. After killing him, Leonard transported Dempsey’s body to Deep Creek Reserve, hiding it within the isolated bushland surrounding the creek.
But the crime did not end there. According to investigators, Leonard later returned to the body, dismembered the remains, and stored body parts inside a freezer at his home he shared with his girlfriend. Months later, Leonard and his girlfriend, Denise Shipley, travelled to Pittwater where they disposed of the remains in an attempt to permanently destroy evidence. Some body parts were later recovered by authorities, while other portions were never conclusively identified.
The brutality of the crime alone was horrifying, but what made the case even more disturbing was that it was only the beginning.
Not long afterward on November 14th, Leonard and his girl friend Shipley had committed another murder — this time targeting taxi driver and father of seven Ezzedine Bahmad. Bahmad had simply been working a night shift when Leonard and Shipley who had just taken LSD entered his taxi. At some point during the journey Leonard attacked and killed him, later attempting to conceal the crime and dispose of evidence connected to the murder. After the attack Leonard and Shipley went to St Vincent’s hospital as they both sustained wounds from the attack and Investigators linked the two cases together through forensic evidence and inconsistencies in Leonard’s statements, gradually revealing the full extent of the crimes.
The investigation exposed a pattern of calculated violence, concealment, and attempts to destroy human remains in the bushland around and waterways surrounding around Wakehurst parkway. Leonard was ultimately convicted and received multiple life sentences for the murders.
Then, in 1995, another tragic case became tied to the bushland surrounding Wakehurst Parkway.
Twenty-one-year-old university student Frances Tizzone disappeared after leaving her family home in Sydney’s north. When she suddenly stopped contacting friends and family, concern quickly began to grow. Days later, her naked body was discovered dumped in bushland at Frenchs Forest, only metres from Wakehurst Parkway. She had been strangled.
The discovery shocked the local community. The isolated stretch of road and surrounding bushland where Frances was found increase public fear of the Parkway and surrounding bushlands.
Police investigations soon focused on Frances’ former boyfriend, John Cerratore. Prosecutors alleged the relationship had become troubled and controlling, and that Cerratore murdered Frances before dumping her body in the bushland in an attempt to conceal the crime. During the investigation, detectives relied heavily on circumstantial evidence, witness statements, and inconsistencies in Cerratore’s accounts of his movements.
Cerratore was eventually convicted of Frances Tizzone’s murder and sentenced to prison. However, the case has remained controversial for decades, with Cerratore continually maintaining his innocence and launching multiple appeals over the years in an attempt to overturn his conviction.
These murders add another layer of unsettling history to the bushland surrounding Wakehurst Parkway — and then there’s the still-unsolved disappearance of Trudie Adams
Trudie was 18 years old when she vanished in June 1978 after leaving a dance at Newport Surf Life Saving Club on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. She’d been there with friends and her boyfriend, but left early sometime after midnight and decided to hitchhike home.
The last confirmed sighting of Trudie was along Barrenjoey Road heading toward the direction of Mona Vale and the broader Northern Beaches road network — including routes feeding toward Wakehurst Parkway. Witnesses saw her getting into a light-coloured panel van… and she was never seen again.
At the time, it became one of the biggest missing persons investigations in NSW history. Police interviewed thousands of people and searched bushland across the Northern Beaches for any sign of her.
What makes the case even darker is that investigators later began linking her disappearance to a series of violent attacks and rapes committed around the Northern Beaches throughout the 1970s. Some detectives believed the same offender — or offenders — may have been responsible.
Over the years, rumours spread that Trudie’s body may have been dumped somewhere in bushland around the Wakehurst Parkway corridor because of how isolated and dense the area was back then.The case was reopened multiple times, rewards were increased, coronial inquests were held, and police eventually declared Trudie likely died from homicide or misadventure. But more than 45 years later, nobody has ever been charged and her body has never been recovered.
That unsolved mystery surrounding Trudie Adams will probably always be tied to Wakehurst Parkway and the eerie reputation that surrounds the road.
And there is also the uneasy amount of car crashes that have occurred on this 14km stretch of road.
Wakehurst Parkway has become notorious for serious and fatal car crashes.
Fog rolling across the roadway without warning. Torrential rain and flooding. Sharp bends cutting through dense bushland. Wildlife darting from the trees. Long isolated stretches with poor visibility and minimal lighting.
Between 2017 and 2021 alone, official statistics recorded 82 injury crashes along sections of the Parkway. Locals and road safety advocates have repeatedly raised concerns about dangerous intersections, flooding, and the unpredictable conditions that can transform the road in seconds.
Over the decades, multiple fatal accidents have occurred along the roadway. In 2013, 19-year-old Sarah Durazza died after her vehicle left the road and struck a tree. Then in 2024, nurse Phoebe Dawson was killed in a devastating head-on collision during severe storm conditions near North Narrabeen. Tributes later described her as “absolute sunshine,” with the local community left shattered by her death
Long before Wakehurst Parkway became known for ghost stories and car crashes, the surrounding bushland already carried dark stories dating back to the earliest colonial years. I found this story really interesting and dark which could also be why the land and lagoon is so haunted.
There is even a dark history on the land from colonial times. A newspaper from 1913 recounts life around Narrabeen Lagoon, the story tells of an Aboriginal chief named Yowal and his daughter, Narrabeen — the woman the lagoon was supposedly named after. According to the account, Narrabeen became suspicious after spotting a convict named Champion secretly meeting with a violent bushranger gang led by a man known as Big Mick. The gang had allegedly been planning an attack on the Reynolds family farmhouse, with Champion acting as their inside man by poisoning or killing the family’s guard dogs so the bushrangers could approach unnoticed.
After discovering the plot, Narrabeen rushed to warn her father, who gathered his men and rode to alert the Reynolds family. The farmhouse was barricaded and messengers were sent through the bush to Sydney for military assistance. Through the night, Yowal’s men watched the lagoon expecting the gang to cross there — but before dawn, the bushrangers circled through the scrub undetected and ambushed the property instead.
At first light, Reynolds stepped outside believing the danger had passed, only to be shot dead instantly by Big Mick. His wife was killed moments later while carrying their infant child. A violent gunfight erupted inside the home, with Reynolds’ teenage son reportedly managing to shoot and kill Big Mick before the remaining bushrangers stormed the house and massacred the family.
As the gang looted the property and drank the family’s rum, Narrabeen spotted soldiers arriving from Sydney and ran ahead to warn the farm. Realising troops were closing in, the bushrangers fled toward the lagoon but were surrounded by soldiers and Yowal’s warriors. Several were shot dead, while the survivors were captured and later hanged in Sydney.
During the chaos, fire spread through the farmhouse and ignited a hidden keg of gunpowder beneath the floorboards, causing an explosion that destroyed much of the building. According to the story, Champion — who had been locked inside — burned alive in the flames.
Whether entirely factual or partly folklore, stories like these as far back fro colonial times show that long before the modern ghost stories and legends surrounding Wakehurst Parkway, this landscape was already deeply tied to violence, tragedy, and death.
Another disturbing incidents linked to the area happened in 1924 near Deep Creek Bridge at Narrabeen Lagoon.
A picnic group rowing on the lake suddenly heard agonising screams coming from the bushes.
As they approached, they saw a man and woman struggling in the water.
When the rescuers rowed toward them, the man climbed out and disappeared into the scrub.
It looked as though he was attacking the women, she was rescued and taken to hospital.
The man was never identified though and its just another strange encounter associated with the area.
Narrabeen Lagoon may look calm on the surface, but for more than a century the lagoon and its surrounding creeks have been linked to an extraordinary number of drownings. At least 39 people are believed to have died in the lagoon system over the years — a death toll reportedly higher than many ocean beaches.
Many of those deaths were blamed on dredging carried out in the early 1900s. As sections of the lagoon were dug out to deepen waterways and reclaim land, the once shallow floor became filled with hidden trenches, sudden drop-offs, and deep underwater holes. Areas where children had once safely paddled suddenly became dangerous.
Over the decades, tragedy after tragedy followed. A 17-year-old boy drowned after stepping into one of the hidden holes in 1925. Two years later, a 12-year-old girl drowned in water reportedly more than 20 feet deep. In the years that followed, more children and adults lost their lives in the lagoon and the creeks surrounding Wakehurst Parkway. Adults and children who went for a swim to be found at the bottom of 20 feet drop offs.
Over time, the area developed an unsettling reputation among locals — not because of crashing waves or dangerous surf, but because of what lay hidden beneath the surface. Over time, the area developed an unsettling reputation among locals — not because of crashing waves or dangerous surf, but because of what lay hidden beneath the surface. So many deaths in one lagoon, the Wakehurst Parkway wraps around the lagoon and follows the creeks and bushland connected to it, and along that stretch of road came even more stories of accidents, deaths, disappearances, and unexplained encounters
There is also evidence of Aboriginal history in the area.
In 2005, workers excavating near the northern end of the Parkway uncovered human skeletal remains.
At first, people feared they had discovered another murder victim.
Instead, archaeologists discovered the remains belonged to an Aboriginal man who had died around 4,000 years ago from ritual spearing.
He became known as “Narrabeen Man.”
The discovery shocked archaeologists because of how old the remains were and the violent injuries found on the skeleton.
The area surrounding Wakehurst Parkway also contains ancient Aboriginal carvings.
In 1952, letters to newspapers complained that motorists were driving over and damaging these carvings near Wakehurst Park Road in Frenchs Forest.
The carvings were considered culturally significant, and concerns were raised that they were being destroyed by vehicles before proper protections existed.
And then there’s the strange story surrounding the memorial plaque commemorating the opening of Wakehurst Parkway itself.
In 1982, newspapers reported that the large 2m high sandstone monument marking the road’s opening had been mysteriously smashed apart.
Huge sandstone blocks weighing enormous amounts had reportedly been thrown up to 15 metres away from the structure.
The bronze plaque itself had allegedly already been stolen previously.
Police believed it may have been a vehicle that crashed into the monument but that would cause significant damage to a car and police believe that car would have to be towed away.
To crack or dislodge sandstone blocks that size would take an enormous impact — the kind of force normally associated with a high-speed crash or a sudden collision where tonnes of weight are brought to a stop almost instantly. Unlike another vehicle, the rock absorbs very little of the impact, meaning most of the force is violently transferred back into the car itself. In a crash powerful enough to shatter sandstone and send pieces flying up to 15 metres through the air, you would normally expect catastrophic damage to the vehicle and potentially severe injuries to the driver. Which makes the idea that all of this destruction occurred simply during an attempt to steal a bronze plaque feel difficult to fully explain.
Honestly, this road has enough real tragedy attached to it without the ghost stories. Drownings in the lagoon. Fatal crashes. Murders. Human remains discovered in the surrounding bushland. Damage to ancient Aboriginal sites. Story after story tied to the same stretch of road and waterways.
And maybe that’s why Wakehurst Parkway has the reputation it does.
Not just because of the ghost stories or creepy encounter — but because so much death and tragedy has become attached to the area over generations that the road itself has almost taken on a life of its own. I guess it depends on what you think is true and what you believe… To me it definitely sound haunted I’m even less inclined to drive on it now after learning all of this. That’s all for today WTF Wednesday Thank you for watching or listening how ever you’ve stumble across channel Let me know if you have had any experience s on this road in the comments below and what your thoughts are.
And ill see you guys in the next one.