CRYPTOLINK: 'Yowie Man' researcher resumes hunt on the Manning

A word about cryptolinks: we are not responsible for the content of cryptolinks, which are merely links to outside articles that we think are interesting (sometimes for the wrong reasons), usually posted up without any comment whatsoever from me.

Rex Gilroy, Australia's noted 'Yowie Man', field naturalist and historical researcher, is planning yet another search in the mountain country for more evidence of the 'Taree Bigfoot', who has been leaving his/her 40cm long footprints in forest soil since before European settlement.

He will be accompanied by his wife and fellow researcher, Heather, who has shared 41 years of marriage with him searching for yowies and mystery animals in the Australian bush.

Rex the 'Yowie Man' is currently celebrating 56 years of Yowie (ie relict hominin) research. He will soon publish a book on the anatomy and physiology of relict hominins and is writing his life story. As he approaches 70 he has no intention of retiring.

"I believe we are closing in on the Yowie. 'His' identity is now known and lately we have shown these hominins to be the 'father' of America's 'Bigfoot'," says Rex.

He points out that the early Aborigines confused three races under the composite name 'Yowie' or "hairy man."

"One race of primitive creatures was an' apeish-looking' form of Australian Australopithecine, now called Australopithecus australis. 

"We possess three skull-types dating back 2 million years of this species, found at Katoomba, Bega and near Bathurst. Like their African cousins these beings were herbivorous feeders and did not make tools whereas the other two races are between 1.6m and 3.66m in height and identified as Homo erectus.

Read on...

YOWIE MOVIE TRAILER

Goodness me!

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TANIA POOLE: Tales from the Antipodes

So I’ve heard many people mention to me that they have seen things. Big Cats are an extremely common sight here in Central Victoria. Thylacines are more fascinating, but then Yowies and Bunyips are even more exciting! People who have spoken to me are local people yet cover an area from Horsham to Gippsland. I’m yet to speak to some more people I have on my list, so they will come when they come. Josie is a new friend of mine, and she told me about this sighting at a Yule feast, so I decided to make her the first interviewed.

Interview with Josie Harris

Tania: Where do you live?

Josie: I live in Ballarat now, but my family is from Amphitheatre, which is on the way to Avoca. It’s the start of the Great Divide.

T: So is that the Pyrenees area?

J: Yeah, the mountains look the same as the Pyrenees in France. A lot of it is original growth. It wasn’t cut back when it was settled.

T: How long has your family been up there?

J: Grandpa’s farm was selected by our family, so they’ve been there since settlement.

T: How big is the land?

J: 10,000 acres – it’s quite big.

T: What, sheep?

J: Yep, sheep, since the start

T: So, what have you seen up there?

J: It was when I was about 13. I used to ride horses a lot with my cousins. I’ve got 58 cousins – it’s a huge family – so some of my cousins and I were riding along a dirt road that becomes bitumen later on when you go into Amphitheatre, into the actual town. Just before we got to the bitumen this big cat jumped across the road, and scared the crap out of the horses and we got bucked off.

T: What did it look like?

J: First we thought it was a dog, but it was definitely a cat, 'cause it had a big curved tail, kind of like a dusty brown and the top was darker, don’t know if it was black or brown. It came out from behind a tree and ran across the road into the bush.

T: Do you think it was a feral or definitely a big cat?

J: It was definitely a big cat, as it was the size of one.

T: 'Cause of the tail? The tail and the shoulders are quite distinct.

J: Yeah, and it had a flat head, like a big cat – the flat forehead. You could definitely tell it was not a dog.

T: What time of day was this?

J: Afternoon; we’d just had lunch.

T: What year?

J: I was 13 so it must have been 1995

T: Was it in summer?

J: Yeah, summer holidays. And I’ve heard stuff from other relatives as well; a lot of people have been up in the hills, shooting and stuff, my mum swears, and mum isn’t into this....

T: Bit of a sceptic?

J: Yeah, but she reckons one day she was up in the hills shooting with dad, they just heard this massive roar kind of sound coming from the other hills cause you can often yell from one hill to the other and it echoes clearly.

T: Acoustics is good. Called Amphitheatre for a reason.

J: Yeah, it's all rocky – bush with rocky outcrops. There is no one living on the farm now, but we still own it.

T: What else have your relatives seen?

J: One of my cousins thinks he saw one over in Dunnolly – sort of near Amphitheatre, near Maldon. He was at a party and something was scaring the cows outside and they went out and they reckon they saw one. And on WIN (channel 9) news a few years ago there were footprints – they found big cat footprints in the area.

T: Do you or your family have any theories about where they might come from?

J: There are a few stories – one is that some people brought some back after the Second World War or something – had them as mascots and they got away or let them go. Then there’s the theory that a guy at Miners Rest had a circus – when he retired they were pets, but got away – they’re the stories I heard.

T: What else is out there? Have you heard of anything else?

J: [Laughs] my sister thinks she saw a Bunyip. I don’t know if I believe her or not.

T: What did she see? What was it?

J: We don’t know. Mum reckons it might have been a sheep standing on its hind legs eating the trees. My sister was down at the creek one day, and she came running back and said that she saw it.

T: How old was she?

J: She was 12 – she is 18 now.

T: Did she describe it?

J: She said it was big and hairy and it was trying to hide in the trees, but she saw it and it ran off.
T: Did it run like a sheep?

J: On two legs.

T: On two legs?

J: Yeah. She thinks.

T: She thinks? Wasn’t a Yowie possibly?

J: No idea.

T: Was it brown, or was it like a sheep – a pale brown colour?

J: She said it was brown and black and furry. She said it was more furry that woolly; that’s why she’ll never to this day agree that it was a sheep. Coz she reckons it was furry. Not woolly.

T: Do you think it was like a Yowie? Like a Bigfoot?

J: Could have been. They’ve been seen sort of near there.

T: Where?

J: Just rumours – further up north, in more forest areas, near Bendigo and Swan Hill.

T: Was that on the property as well – where the cats are?

J: Yep, they live in that area.

T: Yowies?

J: Big cats.

T: You think they live in the hills?

J: The rabbit virus never really took hold – lots of rabbits up there - that’s probably what they eat. I’ll never forget that cat though. It scared the hell out of me and the horses. And the one we saw on the footage on WIN news 5 or 6 years ago looked like the same.

T: You haven’t heard of any Thylacines in the area?

J: Only further south, near the Otways.

T: And the Grampians.

J: That’s certainly a hotspot.

T: Thanks Jo!

Of course after hearing about her sister’s sighting, I thought this interview was far from over. But then I’ve not yet met her sister, except for a short phone conversation and an email but she has not replied to my request – so I am not sure whether she wants to be interviewed about it, or whether it really was just made up by her. Josie seems rather dubious about her sister’s story, so I am not sure what to believe.

YOWIE SIGHTING?

Tony Lucas sent us this:

http://naturalplane.blogspot.com/2010/04/video-yowie-encounter-blue-mountains.html

Now, Richard and I watched it, and to be quite honest we didn't see a bloody thing. Are we just being dumb?

LAWRIE WILLIAMS: Topaz Trip

On November 30th I took some friends out to Topaz for a bit of a look around. It was sad to see how much forest has been wiped away as well as how many public roads have locked gates. The Labor Party was founded in opposition to the squatters (as in Waltzing Matilda) but in the 1980s they got the bright idea of devolving state power to local councils usually dominated by conservative farmers. As a result many of the finest scenic and prospecting areas in the state are now inaccessible and many public roads have been closed, making it impossible for the public to use them.

Oh, well; all the better for the survival of crypo-critters.

We went to check out Wairambar Creek. From a distance Topaz shows only as a sliver of pale green - it is mostly dairy farms. The google view shows Topaz along with the Russel River and some of the most difficult terrain on the planet. Topaz is the tongue of
land in the mid-ground and Millaa Millaa is at the top left. Topaz is 12km away but its a full 30-km drive to get there.

Topaz - a long range view

Topaz and Bartle Frere

This is a well-known Yowie area and I shall collect some witness accounts in the fullness of time.

I'd promised some friends I would show them some gold so we went across some private land (with permission) and into the rainforest. About 2km in, the track ended and then we went about 200m down a steep slope, all of it through a dense maze of saplings and vines under the mature canopy.

The last part was truly precipitous but with so much stuff to grab or get tangled in if we fell it was not so much deadly as merely risky and difficult.

Karen in the creek

We got to the creek and the first thing I noticed was that all the rocks were loose. In other words, some time in the past 15 years it has all been put through a gold dredge. No harm in that although it is illegal. We delved to a bank next to a big pool and got a couple of dishes to 'wash.' The first had a speck of gold in it and the second a fleck. The worthwhile gold would be in a horizontal stratum all around us up the slopes.

This goldfield never got cleaned up because of the dense scrub, the "wild blacks", the basalt overburden and above all, because of the deadly depressive effects that set in once the rain starts and the scenery becomes dark monochrome, even during daytime.

I'd done my bit so I resorted to the pool. What with spending so much time writing I've started to put on weight so to fight da flab I stayed in the cool ( 17 C approx) water for half an hour. Wonderful.

At one stage while swimming underwater across the pool I was cruising between big boulders and ahead of me I saw a big dark cloud of mud. It put the wind up me because it could only mean I was sharing the pool with something fairly large. I hastily retreated. Years ago in nearby 5-mile creek a water snake fixed his teeth around my calf making a huge circle of small holes and I did not feel like a repeat of that experience. Another time I met a very big eel in the Russel River - we simultaneously turned tail and fled!

There was no chance of meeting a yowie that day. I'd taken my dog Chelsie along and could not navigate the slope with her on the chain as it kept getting impossibly tangled in the vines. So she was set free. She is trained not to go off chasing things and one of the strange characteristics of North Queensland scrub is that it is very rare to see any animal life. So she just showed off her all-terrain abilities literally running up and down the impossible slope while we hauled our way up inch by difficult inch.

I am sure dogs are the reason humans are not extinct. No large predator could possibly catch a human by surprise because of the way dogs constantly circle their people in dense forest. Naturally when I go deeper into the scrub I leave Chelsie at home.

I believe the tropical rainforests of Queensland are the closest thing left on this planet to the original natural habitat of Homo sap and related species. The temperature is stable, there is constant food if you know what to look for, there is always water and there is the security that comes of being invisible just 20m away from unwanted prying eyes. Despite the horrid climb with clutching at thorny vines and scrabbling in the dirt none of us suffered any injury worse than some very tired muscles in our arms. (I did pause on the way up to wonder what I'd do if I blundered into a colony of jumping ants!)

Today I feel weary but very much alive. My appetite has reduced in response to that long spell in cold water. More long cool swims coming up this summer!

YOWIE REPORT

Hello Mr Downes,

A few months ago I sent you some info of yowies at Kempsey, NSW Australia.

The three attachments are from a very good sighting in the Pilliga scrub, North West NSW.

I hope you find this of interest. This came from our local paper today. Also, a guy I was working with in Kempsey told me that an old aboriginal guy who lives out at Bellbrook, which is about 50kms up river from Kempsey, actually has the remains of a yowie. Apparently he has had the skull & other body parts stored in a shed for years, but because of aboriginal superstitions, he won't allow any white people to see it. He did let his grandchildren go in to see it and they ran out pretty scared.

Apparently it looked like a hairy human. The guy that told me about it was actually told all this by the old aboriginal that supposedly has the remains.

Regards
Michael Hardcastle.

CFZ AUSTRALIA: There's yowies in them thar hills!

A 1978 yowie encounter in the Northern Territory has inspired a play that is now touring the country.

"NT News stories about yowie sightings in Acacia Hills were in fact a key point of inspiration for the piece," she told the Northern Territory News.

The play is the brainchild of Ella Watson-Russell, and centres around the kidnap of a man by two "hairy sisters". Intriguing!

Writing the play has apparently turned Watson-Russell from a sceptic to a believer.

There have been numerous reports of yowies in the Acacia Hills area, most recently in the 1990s.

http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2009/09/25/87501_entertainment.html

Posted By CFZ Australia to Centre for Fortean Zoology Australia at 10/16/2009 03:02:00 AM

GUEST BLOGGER TANIA POOLE: PLENTY TO SEE IN CENTRAL VICTORIA

Tania turned up at the Weird Weekend a few years ago having travelled all the way from Australia for the privelige. She is a jolly nice young lady with an enduring interest in things fortean and things zoological, and it is a pleasure to welcome her aboard the good ship bloggo..

While I sometimes think that I live in a boring place, where it seems there are not enough cryptid sightings to warrant an expedition, I really think I just don’t admire it properly. This landscape is so vast I don’t know where to start! Here in Central Victoria, we are declared a Temperate Zone, it does get very dry and as we have seen this past week, fires are the worst threat. Over 200 estimated dead Victorians over one weekend is a very rare thing to see, and this is the worst in white Australian history!

But since my teens I have always wanted to know what lives in MY area? What cryptids skulk through the Golden Plains of west, central and south-east Victoria? Well, the cryptid seen the most is the Big Cat, with the occasional exception of something really strange and rare. We all have some ideas that in this area, Big Cats are possibly here because of the result of circuses ending and animals being released, or the story of US air force army mascot let go after WW2. But still there has not been any real evidence of a deceased one found, and that is why the news will occasionally broadcast a segment on the mysterious out-of-place Big Cats in rural Australia, usually interviewing Mike Williams who discusses the presence of ABC’s, while loyally sporting a CFZ t-shirt. But through my own research over the years, and stories I have heard, there are some very juicy accounts of ABC’s and even thylacines in this fine state of ours. Of course there are Yowies too, but I don’t have many Victorian local stories of Yowies (even though at the Weird Weekend 2006, I hounded Paul Cropper for reported sightings of Yowies in the Otway State Forest, South-West Victoria’s rainforest region already famous for its glow-worms and unique carnivorous black snails (Victaphanta compacta).

But the reports of ABC’s are plentiful in Central Victoria, and where I live, (just outside Ballarat) you hear of many crossing roads in front of motorists, and farmers finding mutilated sheep and cows with strange claw marks on their backs. There are of course plaster casts of paw prints, scat samples, and fur. Most of the articles I collected in the 1990s indicate that it would be rare from anyone in the regions I mentioned above to have NOT seen an ABC of some sort. Shiny eyes in headlights and deep snarling sounds when someone walks on their property at night. From the book of Tony Healy and Paul Cropper, Out of the Shadows comes the tale of a woman, who, when stationed as a Land Army girl during WW2, knew that the Americans kept a mountain lion with four cubs which they had to get rid of. They were released near Hall’s Gap in the Grampians. An account I have heard from a friend since then was of a man who does horse riding tours through the Grampians. One day he took the horses out to find a new track to take tourists on. At one point the horses stopped and would not go any further. Up ahead, the tour guide saw big yellow cats sunning themselves on large boulders.

And then there are the personal accounts I have heard from people over the years with stories from all over Victoria. Often I will be with many friends and acquaintances who tell me stories of sightings. While ABC sightings are common enough, other stories I have include Thylacines and a couple of Yowies.

One is of when I was 12, back in 1989. I was on a primary school camp in Gippsland, and a bus driver took us kiddies down to Wilson’s Promontory. On the way we stopped on the side of the road to approach some kangaroos and emus. While the others busied themselves chasing rather large Eastern Greys, I stood back and heard the driver tell my principal about the time he was driving a bus down Wilson’s Prom one night and a thylacine crossed the road in front of his headlights. I remember his description – ‘dog like and sandy coloured, with the stripes on his lower back and stiff tail at the end.’ It was no mistake. That had to be a Tasmanian Tiger. Wilson’s Promontory is famous for Thylacine sightings. I have an article where a pilot in a light aircraft saw one on one of the Promontories beaches.

Another story comes from Central Vic, near Castlemaine. My very good friends (who are like second parents to me) in Guildford/Tarilta area of the Loddon River have a story to tell about a thylacine sighting sometime in the mid to late 1970’s. They had bought some property in the Box-Ironbark forest on the Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park, but before their house and sheds were built, their friend spent a night out there his car alone. In the night he heard a noise and turned on his headlights only to see a stripy, sandy dog, with a ‘gape larger than any dogs.’ What amazed my friends was that he was completely unaware of what he had seen, and must not have known anything about the now extinct Tasmanian Tiger. While they sat with their mouths dropped open after the tale, their friend stayed perfectly ignorant and still does today. They decided not to tell him exactly what he’d seen.

My friend Chris told me about his teenage cousin seeing a Yowie of some description in Anakie, just outside my hometown of Geelong. He was playing basketball in his driveway, and saw in the neighbouring field, a large hairy man running towards the forests of the Brisbane Ranges. The boy spent the rest of the day inside, frightened out of his wits, his mother very confused with his behaviour.

I also recall my mother telling me only a few years ago that a Yowie had been seen near the suspension bridge in the Tarra-Bulga National Park.

My housemate and friend told me today about the Talbot/Maryborough sightings. The stories got so popular he remembers in his early teens, in 1989, seeing a ‘Puma crossing’ yellow road sign complete with picture of big cat profile on it on the road between Talbot and Maryborough. It was very well done, as if the council put an official one up, ‘It only lasted 12 months then someone pulled it down.’

But the most recent unreported ABC story I have, happened only a few weeks ago to my friends, again those who live in the Guildford/Tarilta area. My friend was out on his bushland property at night without a torch, with his two fearless basenji dogs with him. He heard the padding of large footprints near him in the dark, and the ‘fearless’ basenji’s who love to chase foxes, took off back to the house very frightened. Whatever it was got closer and began to snarl at my friend and while he had no time to get a torch, he proceeded to cry out and bang on corrugated iron sheets to try to scare the thing off.

With ABC’s, I’ve no doubt that only a third of the sightings out there are being reported, I’ve no doubt that some people who live in the country here see things twice, even three times. But it certainly is not boring out here. There are always new stories to hear and hopefully, one day, something to see!