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The Yowie Story

By Rex Gilroy

Australia's Leading Authority on The Yowie

Mammoth Mountain Bega 1909: Leaving the Snowy Mountains region for the far south coastal and inland districts, we find another area rich in 'hairy man' folklore. About 1909, a Mr Charles saw a two-metre-tall hairy man in bushland oh his remote farm near the base of Mammoth Mountain outside Bega. The man-beast was observing him as he went about his work cutting timber. When he stopped to observe the hairy visitor it turned and walked off back into the scrub.

1885: Much earlier, about 1885 at nearby Tathra, Tom Michael, a youth about 15 years of age, was working on a dairy farm. One day, while milking a cow in a paddock on the edge of thick timber, he became aware that he was not alone. Watching him inquisitively from nearby bushes, he saw a hairy ape-like female creature about 1.6 metres in height. Tom offered her some milk in a pail in an effort to attract her closer, but she turned around and ran into the scrub. Again, the next day, Tom saw the hairy female resting on the ground near where he'd seen her the day before, but this time he chose not to go near her and, instead, watched her until she returned to the bush. He never saw her again.

According to Aborigines of the Bega district, "Doolegards" {yet another variant of the name} inhabit the Brown Mountain region. Ancient Aboriginal tradition of that area says these Doolegards were big hairy man beast monsters who ate Aborigines in the long ago Dreamtime. The "Bega Monster" continues to be seen in the Bega-Brown Mountain area, and giant-sized footprints are still found in the forest country thereabouts.

All the Following Yowie Evidence is Gathered for Scientific Research at the:

The Australian Yowie Research Centre and Australasian Relict Hominid's Research Center Katoomba

Established in 1965

All Images and Reports Copywritten 1965-2002 and beyond: The Author Rex Gilroy

Unless Otherwise Stated

Hairy Man-Beasts of the Australian Bush

From My First Book

Mysterious Australia 1995

Chapter 16

Wadbilliga National Park 1979: Further north up the coast and inland from Narooma, thence westward along the Tuross River, lies the Wadbilliga National park situated in typical south-coast forestland. It was here in this wild country late one afternoon in October 1979 that a ranger "Steve" {name witheld on request}, was parked on a remote four-wheel-drive road at a seldom-used picnic area while he checked the surrounding forest for rubbish discarded by thoughtless people.

"The time was about 4 pm, and I was thinking it was getting late and I had better leave as it was a long drive through the park back to civilisation. I was working my way back towards the Land-Rover, some 300 yards away, among the gums in the quiet forest-not a bird to be heard-when I heard some distant sounds of snapping foliage and strange, gutteral sounds.

"Someone's coming I thought."

Steve got the shock of his life and for a moment could not decide whether to make a dash through the trees for the Land-Rover or hide where he was.

"At that moment, looking in the direction of the sounds across a ferny clearing, I spotted three hairy shapes, one taller than the a normal human, emerging onto the clearing about 200 feet away. In an instant I thought only one word, 'yowie'-tales of which I had heard before but never believed {but I do now!}.

"They had not seen me, and for obvious reasons by now I was down behind some foliage, 'eating dirt'. There ahead of me were three hairy, naked ape-like forms-I had glanced a quick look through the bushes-a male of about nine feet tall, a female of size feet and a five-foot juvenile male.

"I froze in disbelief, horrified that they might see me close by. The big male was very thickset, the female slender. I saw little else for I was too preoccupied in lying as close to the ground as I could to avoid being seen and perhaps attacked and killed by these 'human apes'. They wandered across the clearing away from where I lay. The last I saw of them were thier backs as they continued on into the forest in the distance."

For a minute or two, Steve remained where he was, just to make sure they were well and truly out of sight, then...

"I got to my feet and ran for the vehicle some distance away. {Surely they must have noticed it,' I thought}Anyway, I damn well got out of that forest and out of the park as fast as I could. "Some weeks later I heard that two young blokes out camping thereabouts reported finding big footprints in soil on the road near where I had my experience, but heavy rain washed them away before anyone could return with the boy's to inspect them.

"Steve" reported his story to me after publication of an article about my research into the 'hairy man" of the south coast' in the local press. It is by no means the only story of its kind to come from those vast wilds.

Wallaga Lake 1986: Far south coastal NSW Aboriginal people are often too tight lipped to speak of the many mysterious and sometimes terrifying encounters that their people have had with Doolagahls, but here is one account that involved a young Aboriginal mother, "Julie", in the Wallaga Lake area in 1986.

Her story goes that one day she left her four-year old boy playing on a creek-bank facing the backyard of the family property while she hung out washing on the clothes hoist. The property is flanked on two sides by thick scrub, with scrub covering the opposite bank of the creek. As she was surrounded by sheets on the hoist, her view of the boy was momentarily blocked. it was at this moment that she heard the little boy speaking to a "man".

When she pushed aside the sheets she was horrified. Standing looking down at the little boy from a mere six feet {two metres} away, was an ugly, gorilla-like, black-haired male creature a good 2.3 metres in height, with long arms and big hands dangling at its sides. The woman later described the hominid as standing in a stooped position and having an ape-like head with the by-now-familiar thick eyebrow ridges, receding forehead and pointed skull-dome.

"When I first saw the man-beast I knew right away it was a Doolagahl. We have been taught from childhood about these monsters that live up in the mountains. I feared the Doolagahl was about to snatch up my little boy and run off with him," she told a neighbour later.

However, quickly regaining her presence of mind, she picked up a shovel laying nearby and charged screaming at the creature, snatching up her child and running for the house, dropping the shovel in the process. As she reached the back door she looked back to see the hairy monster running up and over the opposite bank and into thick scrub. Several Aboriginal men and the woman's husband later searched the area, but apart from the indistinct squashed footprints embedded in the creek mud they found no other trace of the hairy monster.

Braidwood 1980: Further north and inland from Batemans Bay lies the town of Braidwood. It was her that the 'hairy man' made numerous appearances throughout the 1970's and early 1980's in a rash of sightings that recalled many old pioneer's tales among the locals.

In one incident, Mrs Val Hanson, together with friends, was camped at a lonely spot on the Shoalhaven River outside Braidwood one day in 1980. In the course of exploring the river they came upon a number of manlike footprints, measuring 46 cm long by 25.5 centimetres wide across the toes, embedded in the river-bank. The discovery made everyone feel a little uneasy, and later that night as they sat around their campfire they had the distinct feeling that they were being watched, although they never saw the maker of the giant footprints and it did not give any further indication of its presence thereafter. Even so, the group was eager to leave the area when daylight came.

North from Braidwood lies Nerriga, home of the "Nerriga Giant". Often described as a "gorilla-like" beast both by whites and Aborigines {who also call it the Doolagahl}, it has been claimed seen in the nearby Budawang Range.

A farmer claimed to see a hairy male creature eating apples from a tree on his orchard near Nerriga in 1970. The man was too scared to approach the three-metre-tall monster and watched it feeding from the safety of his farmhouse until the man-beast walked away into scrub.

The Blue Mountains Aboriginal Descriptions: We turn now to the vast expanses of the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, where most of the 'classic' historical sightings of yowies originated in the early years following European settlement in this district. The early settlers learnt of the many mysterious creatures from the Aborigines, but none created as much fear among the natives as the yowie which, they informed the settlers, were often enormous, fearsome manlike beasts that walked upon two legs with a stooped, shambling gait.

As described by tribespeople elsewhere across the country, these monsters were covered from head to foot in long hair. They had no neck, the head being sunk into the shoulders. Aborigines informed settlers of the yowie's diet which, as elsewhere, consisted of vegetable matter such as certain plants, roots, berries, leaves and barks. Animals were eaten on occasion, as were Aborigines unfortunate enough to be caught by one of these monsters.

The Blue Mountains continues to be a hotbed of yowie man-beast activity-a vast region of hundreds of square miles still containing inaccessible forest regions seldom if ever visited by Europeans. The "Hairy Giants of Katoomba" are also known as the "Killer Man-Apes of the Blue Mountains" to many locals-and with good reason, as you will read soon.

Minna Ha Ha Falls January 1961: About January 1961, two young women, "Jacki" and " Helen", were frightened by a hairy male hominid creature which appeared from out of thick scrub near the top of Minna Ha Ha Falls in the north Katoomba bushland. The man-beast they later told police, stood a good seven feet {2.3 metres} tall, had a sloping forehead and thick eyebrow ridges, was very muscular and had long arms with big hands. Screaming the girls ran off in the direction of the carpark. People to whom they told their story at the park returned to search the area but found no tracks of thee creature due to the rocky terrain, although both women agreed the man-beast's feet were "very large".

In May 1974, a pony was found dead in thick bushland near the falls. its neck had been broken, the head almost torn off, and portions of its back had been removed and eaten. Nearby were the ominous footprints of what must have been an enormous ape-like creature. News of the gruesome find revived memories of a similar occurence some months before on a Mount Victoria farm where a sheep had been killed in much the same manner. Nearby, large ape-like footprints had been found.

Mount Victoria ,Victoria Falls,Grose Valley 1890's-1900's: Mount Victoria residents at the time recalled that, during the 1800's, early settlers believed, on the basis of sightings, that a 'family' of yowies lived in the bush on the Victoria Falls road three miles east of the township above the Grose Valley. It is said in about 1910, two men were bushwalking in the Victoria Falls area when a three-metre-tall, hairy gorilla-like male creature charged at them from out of dense scrub. He had a large rock in his hand which he hurled at the men, hitting one of them and killing him instantly. His companion somehow managed to run from the monster. The next day, a party of men with guns and dogs returned to the scene with the survivor, but apart from some blood on the ground his companion's body was nowhere to be found. It was assumed his body had been carried off by the man-beast.

I recieve many phone calls from people all over Australia who have something to report, and at all hours.

Blaxland 1988: One October night in 1988 I was woken from my sleep by the phone ringing. half awake, I picked up the receiver to hear the frantic voice of a woman. I glanced my watch: the time was 1am. In an at-first garbled manner she was trying to explain as best she could while others screamed in the background-that a huge, dark, hairy manlike monster was standing in the backyard of her house which backed onto dense scrub at the end of a well populated street on the edge of east Blaxland.

Her husband came to the phone, repeating much of what she had just said. Finally, the story became clearer. It appeared that they had just moved into their new home and had invited a dozen friends to a house warming party. As the others sat about the lounge room talking, two of the guests, a man and a woman, had gone out onto the balcony overlooking the backyard and the scrub beyond. As they looked towards the scrub, they spotted a tall, indistinct, dark figure standing on the edge of the bush in the dim glow of the house lights. As they watched inquisitively, the figure stepped forward into full view. The couple dashed back into the lounge room shouting about what was standing outside.

At this, everyone came out to see what the commotion was, only to look down with horror upon a snarling 2.6 metre-tall, naked male creature, very hairy and more ape-looking than human. The women ran inside screaming. The man-monster proceeded to hurl one rock after another from a nearby garden at the men still standing on the balcony above, before they, too, retreated inside. By now, the woman was phoning the police {who failed to take the matter seriously}. Believing the monster to be a yowie, she phoned me as well. Meanwhile, the man-ape walked away into the bush, leaving a bad odour about the yard. It left no footprints due to the hard rocky ground thereabouts.

Investigating the scene later, I found the scrub led into a deep gully dropping down into the eastern escarpment of the Blue Mountains which overlooks the Nepean river with Winmalee to the north-scene of many claimed yowie encounters over the years.

Jamieson Valley, Ruined Castle June 1979: On Saturday 7th June 1979, Mr John Evbic and a mate, "Tony", were exploring dense scrub on the Jamieson Valley side of the Ruined Castle rock formation. Around midday, as they rested on a rise overlooking a paperbark forest some 60 metres below them, they observed a human-like shape moving on two legs among the trees. As it came into full view , the men realised it to be no ordinary human being but something more ape than man, and a good six feet tall. It was covered in long brownish hair.

"The strange beast moved to a paperbark tree and began tearing away large slabs of bark, appearing to pick off and eat beetles it found burrowing underneath, oblivious all the time to out presence," said Tony.

The mysterious man-beast then began moving off further into the scrub, continuing its foraging. When it was lost from sight, the men did not follow it.

Megalong Valley: The Megalong Valley covers a considerable territory, stretching from its junction with the Wild Dog Mountains and Cedar Valley to the south, northward to the Kanimbla Valley, which ends at the base of the ridge down which Mount Victoria Pass descends. Apart from the farms that dot the area, it is wild country surrounded by dense bushland, particularly toward the southern end of the valley where deep and often impassable gullies and canyons defy all but the hardiest bushwalkers.

The first Europeans to settle this wilderness accepted the tales of Aborigines they had befriended, of hairy manlike monsters, half-man, half something else they could not understand, that roamed the forests. Settlers were warned to stay indoors at night or else these wandering giants might capture them, carry them off into the forests and devour them. These monsters were the yowies-"great hairy men".

In fact, early farmers of the valley often blamed the Aborigines for stealing their vegetables, but the local tribespeople claimed the yowies were responsible, pointing to the distinctive, often larger-than-human footprints left about the vegetable plots by the creatures. These, they pointed out, differed from human footprints in that they displayed an opposable big toe. The yowies continue to make their presence known in the Megalong and adjoining valleys.

Packsaddlers 1978: One December day in 1978, Mr Steve Delainy was bushwalking in Megalong Valley, when, as he worked his way through the dense undergrowth of a forest in the vicinity of "Packsaddlers", he spotted a six-foot-tall, hairy ape-like creature moving among nearby bushes. It was enough for young Steve to turn around and return the way he had come, but at a much faster pace.

Wild Dog Mountains 1976: During 1976, a camping group of two dozen men and women established camp in the Wild Dog Mountains south-west of Narrow Neck behind "Packsaddlers". Nothing happened during the night, but in the early hours of the morning something strange visited the camp. One of the girls awoke to see "a 2.7-metre-tall, hairy ape-like male creature" examining the camp cooking equipment and other goods. She screamed and the commotion aroused the group. The monster threw down what it was holding and dashed off into the scrub.

Kanangra Boyd National Park: Beyond the Wild Dog Mountains lie the Jenolan Ranges and, rising behind, high above them, the vast range of the Kanangra Boyd National Park. It is yet another region steeped in ancient Aboriginal folklore as the home of the "great hairy men".

"It was about 2.7 metres tall, muscular and hairy, and walked on two legs into the dense scrub without looking back at us."

That was how two bushwalkers described a mystery intruder in their camp at dawn one morning in 1982 near Boyd River Crossing, high up in the rugged, forested gorges and mountains that form the Kanangra Boyd National Park. The early Aborigines hereabouts were not the only ones who took the yowies seriously: the early white settlers living on the fringes certainly did, judging by the many tales that have come out of the region from the 1800's.

When questioned by early settlers about the creatures, the Aborigines often insisted that the yowies were terrifying to look upon yet were harmless to man unless provoked or their young endangered, or if anyone decided to stay too long in any location that the creatures had already chosen as 'their "territory. I have led numerous expeditions into this vast wilderness and am convinced these 'manimals' still roam these mountains.

The following page are but some of the many recent stories concerning encounters with the Kanangra man-apes.

Mysterious Australia Extracts {1995}

From Chapter 16

Click Next for the Following Articles


Click here for Individual Pages

Yowie Stories 2

Yowie Sightings


Click here for Individual Pages of Yowie Sightings

Apeman In Australia / And Then There Were Giants / Gorilla-Giants Of Katoomba

Eastern State Yowies / Yowies Of Katoomba / Western New South Wales Yowies

Yowies Fair Dinkum / Yowie Goldcoast