We're standing on an asphalt covered carpark, being told that Melbourne's famous Queen Victoria Market had a rather controversial beginning.

Much of the land on which it stands was Melbourne's first official cemetery and there was a public outcry when the market was established there. Some 914 bodies were exhumed and reburied elsewhere, including the remains of John Batman, Melbourne's founding father, which in a final indignity were reinterred in Fawkner Cemetery, named after his nemesis, John Fawkner. Perhaps the monument erected to him at the market is some slight appeasement.

Then, our host of The Haunted Melbourne Ghost Tour, Drew Sinton, eerily dressed in black cassock and flat black hat, points out, we are standing on the remains of some 9,000 souls, including murderers and bushrangers! We walk uneasily towards the line of market sheds and Sinton points to a long brick wall which he says is the original northern cemetery wall and shows us concrete blocks on which the column supports for the roof rest, placed there so as not to disturb the ground beneath.

I won't give more away, but there is a definite food presence on this 2.5 hour walking tour, showing parts of Melbourne normally unseen. Hear the story of a chef and how he met his grisly end. Why are the corners of some old buildings rebated? We didn't encounter any ghosts, but what we got was a fascinating oral history of Old Melbourne, plus reminders of some dark recent history, giving rise to hairs on the back of your neck.

Even for skeptics it's worth a look, oh, and Sinton knows who you are.