Puckeys Estate
Names: Puckeys Flats. Puckeys Estate. Puckeys Estate Reserve.
Location: Fairy Meadow. Boundaries consist of Fairy Meadow Beach to the east, Squires Way to the west, Elliotts Road to the north and Fairy Lagoon/Creek aka Para Creek to the south.
History
The land now known as Puckey’s Estate Reserve was originally used by the native tribe, the Wadi Wadi, before it was sold to Courtney Puckey in 1905.
Over the next few years. Puckey set about constructing and operating a experimental salt works. A graduation tower was constructed that stood 30 feet high and used a traditional century 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.
Over the decades, Puckey’s has gained a dark and disturbing reputation with the many unconfirmed rumors of suspicious deaths, rapes, murders and people who have gone missing in the walkways of Puckey’s Estate.
Many locals believe the land is haunted by the victims of these crimes particularly the spirit of a young girl of about 15 years who was allegedly raped and stabbed to death by two men. After they had completed their brutal crime, they were said to have thrown the victim’s body in the ocean.
Although there seems to be no documented evidence of this event, many locals claim to have seen the spirit of a young girl at dusk or sunset.
Another rumor that has circulated over the years is that if you happen to visit Puckey’s at night, the cries and voices of lost or murdered children will call out. This rumor may be linked with the extensive number of drownings including children occurring at Para or Fairy Creek which borders the estate.
In recent years, there has been several rapes and drownings within the vicinity of Puckey’s Beach.
Would you like to share an experience you have had at Puckey’s? Please do so in the comments!
Credit: Amy Rose – Secrets of the Illawarra
Forgotten Illawarra 
Puckeys Estate was a hot spot from 1980s for gay/bisexual males as a ‘meeting place’ but also it was a hot spot to ‘bash up the gays’ by the local youths.
I would go there around 1996 but i did found the place very creepy.
The other guys I would chat to told me all about “the incidents that weren’t reported in the paper” and some of other men were very creepy looking types
(there was one dude in his 20s had his six year old sister with him at 11:30pm wandering around the car park hand-in-hand.)
Another older male was driving an old bakers van with really old peeling paint that read SANTA’S TOYS on the side.
I didn’t see any ghosts but I did see another side of the Illawarra that was very dark indeed.