Not having been to the colonial settlement since my childhood days, I have no idea what the place looks like in the daylight. However, at night it is beautiful. The darkness, broken only by the candle of the tour guide and pools of light from the street lanterns somehow seemed to usher us back to when the little town was inhabited and alive.
Of course, night-time photography (I hate using a flash) makes for more "ghostly" photos. They are pretty in their own right and sort of show the mood that was sort of in the air.
While I enjoy a good ghost story, I didn't personally see any apparitions or suddenly feel cold. Others in the crowd who claim to have photographed an "orb" may want to check the flash on their cameras...
However, whether or not I believe the original inhabitants of the settlement have truly left, I most certainly feel that places have... moods. Or perhaps more appropriately, impressions left by those who have lived and loved there. It wasn't a far stretch of the imagination to hear long-dead oxen clopping down the street or to see a shadow in a window. Perhaps the people who actually still live in some of the historic houses still feel some remnants of the founders?
It helped that our tour guide was a fantastic story teller. She had everyone mesmerized with her accounts of ghostly boys playing in the yards or husbands waiting for their wives to join them beyond the grave.
The group of little ones who were with us were enthralled (and a little scared). I think they would have sat there all night and listened to the stories by candlelight; computers and television forgotten for an evening.
We returned to our campsite that night with a tired little boy and a familiar feeling for the little square of brick buildings. I certainly want to return during daylight hours and see it all, but this experience sparked my interest in a way that it hadn't been before. Well worth $10 and a few hours of time.
