Paranormal NZ Investigates: The Central Hotel - Dargaville

On February 15th, 2025, the team road-tripped North to spend the night investigating the beautiful and historic Central Hotel in Dargaville.
This was a location the team had investigated for a night back in 2017, so we figured it was about time for a follow-up visit. It felt great to be back there.
It's a wonderful old building. The first hotel on the site, the Kaihu Hotel, was constructed in 1901 during the Kauri logging and shipbuilding era.
By sheer coincidence, our arrival happened to be on the same day as the fire that destroyed the original building back in 1901!
Kaihu Hotel burned down on the morning of Saturday, 16 February 1901. One man, named James Carmody, didn’t escape the fire. The victim’s bones were discovered amongst the ashes after the fire, and an inquest was later held to determine the cause of death. The hotel itself was completely destroyed. The hotel's licensee, Edmond Moriarty, had previously been the publican of the Pahi Hotel, which coincidently had burned down in September 1897 when he had been in charge of that establishment.
Staff have reported hearing unexplained activity in the two bars in the hotel. This included glasses being banged down on the bar when no one was there. More recently, a shot glass was thrown from its shelf and across the floor into an adjacent bar cabinet and a soldier wearing a wide-brim hat and uniform was seen briefly in one of the windows.
Beds in some of the rooms were found messed up with no apparent explanation. The bed in Room 14 is sometimes messed up with an indent in the pillow (as if someone had been lying in the bed), and shadows have been seen in the hallway leading to that room.
People have reported seeing shadows and movement downstairs and in the upstairs hallways.
The present owners reported coming into the bar one morning to find every piece of paper that had been on the walls around both bars was on the floor.
For us, it was a fun and rather relaxed night, with a few interesting sounds here and there. Many we were able to debunk at the time.
We also interviewed a couple of people to get their views and hear their experiences.

We thank the management and staff at the Central Hotel for being so generous in allowing us access and being so welcoming and helpful.

For more, visit www.HauntedAuckland.com