Giants
From the Dreamtime the Yowie In Myth And Reality ![](images/yowie_image_r_s.jpg)
Yowie
Reports 1970's
The1970's was
a very active period for me in my Yowie investigations.
It was the
decade in which people at last began losing their fear of coming forward
publicly with personal experiences with Yowies [and 'unknown' animal
species generally], and suddenly I found myself having to deal with
dozens of reported sightings and footprint discoveries over a vast area
of eastern Australia, including Tasmania; but the region that produced
the greatest number of reports was the northern NSW mountain ranges.
Ruined
Castle 1970
Rex
Gilroy's personal Sighting
It was on the afternoon of
August 7th 1970 on the western slope of Ruined Castle, overlooking Cedar
Valley, that I had my first encounter with a living "hairy man".
However, I made the mistake of trusting the press, who quickly lampooned
my initial newspaper report in the nationwide media.
The distortions created by
the Australian press, radio and TV caused such embarrassment that I
soon ceased repeating the story to people, and in the years ahead I
rarely mentioned it, even at times denying it in certain quarters.
However, times change and
also attitudes, so that I am at last able to relate my experience in
my own words, and not as the media failed to report it.
The
facts are as follows: I had been climbing Mt Solitary
that day and returning from there along the 'saddle' track to Ruined
Castle, I decided to go searching for fossils on the steep western slope
of the 'Castle' above Cedar Creek. There is thick scrub here
and as I picked up slate rocks containing fossil plants on that quiet
afternoon, I heard the sounds of breaking foliage and twigs snapping
underfoot further down the steep slope.
Chancing to look down among
the foliage I saw, about 15 metres away a naked, darkish, hairy skinned
male creature approximately 2m in height, moving across the slope from
north to south oblivious to my presence. The hominid looked rather
primitive, with big eyebrows and hairy arms, and long dark hair trailing
down from its head. He appeared to be scavenging, as if looking for
fern roots or other bush food.
I watched in silence as he
disappeared into the dense scrub, heading southward down the slope in
the direction of Cedar Creek. I glanced at my watch. The time was 3.30pm.
The mystery hominid had been in view for barely 4-5 minutes. I climbed up the slope in
haste to reach the track, as I knew I had to hurry to get out of the
valley before sundown.
The hominid I saw was not
the 4 ft [1.2 m] long-haired, gorilla-like monstrosity created by the
newspaper artists, who in more than one instance claimed myself as the
artist responsible for the drawing! Little wonder that today
many eyewitnesses are reluctant to approach the media with their own
experiences.
Geehi
1970
Hairy
man-like Figure
During June 1970 at Geehi,
north-west of Mount Kosciusko, two mountaineers, Ron Bartlett and Frank
Sinclair, were camped on the edge of a stand of mountainside trees.
Overnight, light snow had fallen.
At daybreak they were preparing
to abandon camp when Frank noticed some large, manlike tracks embedded
in nearby snow. Both had heard tales of the giant hairy Doolagahl's
said to inhabit the mountain country but had taken little notice of
these 'bushmen's tales' until they saw these tracks.
The men also
detected a strange odour and had the distinct feeling that they were
not alone.
Cautiously they
worked their way down through the mountainside scrub. Suddenly ahead,
they spotted a 2.6 metre-tall, dark, hairy manlike figure staring at
them. It then vanished
into the dense scrub. In the years following the outburst of sightings
reports of the mid-1970's, many more incidents have occurred on and
around Mount Kosciusko.
Nerriga
Giant 1970
Feeding
3 metre tall Monster
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.
Lake
Wells 1970
Extensive
trail of giant-sized Footprints
Another similar hairy giant,
stone tool-making hominid is Tjangara. An inhabitant of the vast Nullarbor
Plain and the Great Victoria Desert country, between South Australia
and Western Australia.
Tjangara received considerable
Australia-wide media publicity in July 1970, following the discovery
that month, of an extensive trail of giant-sized footprints by a Mr
Peter Muir, an Agriculture Department dingo hunter, north of Cosmo Newberry
near Leonora, and in the vicinity of Lake Wells, about 540 kilometres
north-west of Perth. Each print measured 38 cm
long, displaying a soft pad and opposable big toe.
Mr Muir estimated at the
time that the creature who made the prints was bipedal and about 3.3m
tall. Mr Muir, together with his Aboriginal wife, followed the footprints
for four and a half kilometres until they entered the long spinifex
grass to disappear in rocky terrain. At this point, Mrs Muir became
"upset and a little terrified", and so the pursuit was abandoned.
Mr Muir estimated that the lurching creature was only about an hour
ahead of them.
Mr Muir, an experienced bushman,
had never before seen such tracks and could not identify them. But local
Aborigines he questioned recognised them immediately as belonging to
the Tjangara, a 3.3m tall man-like beast. This legendary monster stalks
the remoter regions armed with a big stone club, killing and eating
anyone unfortunate enough to meet it, say the Aborigines.
Yet even Tjangara was dwarfed
by the monster-men of South Australian-western Victorian Aboriginal
legend, the Narragun. Probably the same race as the Illankanpanka of
the Gulf Country, these were a race of 6.6m tall giant men and women
who made huge stone tools and ate meat.
In the Mt Gambier region
they were said to cook their food with fire obtained from volcanic lava
flows; a habit also reported from western Victoria where Aborigines
lived in fear of the monsters. Aborigines point to fossil
giant footprints found in these districts as being footsteps left by
the Narraguns.
Cox's
River 1970
Flat
and droney sound, Kaw-Kaw
A close friend
of the author, Mr Robert Warburton, once had a eerie experience at a
location long known for "hairy man" encounters, below the
western escarpment of the Blue Mountains, on the Cox's River just north
of Megalong Valley.
As he related
his experience to me in late April 1970, Robert and three other companions
were camping at this particular location only a week before, on the
evening of Monday 13th April. On the west bank opposite their camp there
was a blackberry patch.
Trees still
grow along the river's banks but not on the rolling hillside through
which it flows. It is limestone country hereabouts and caves are to
be found in the area. The area is very rocky with boulders lying everywhere. "About
2 am my friends and I were woken from our sleep by a noise - a drawn
out flat and droney sound, 'kar-kaw'."
"The others
thought it to be the sounds of a crow, but this was neither that or
any other bird, even any nocturnal species. The sound began in the trees
above the blackberry patch across the river, opposite our camp.
It then began
travelling across the river [which is actually only the size of a wide,
shallow creek in the drier months. RG.], right around behind the camp
within a radius of 25 yards, then back across the river, then the strange
sounds ceased," he said.
Robert also
observed that the area around their camp had been quiet the previous
afternoon, no bird or even cattle sounds [from nearby farms].
Following their
eerie experience the boys got little sleep wondering about the origin
of the strange sounds. About 8 am six cows appeared through the trees,
coming to drink at the river's edge and the sounds of birdlife had also
returned.
It is a feature
common to a great many reports that, whenever one or more of these hominids
have been present in remote bushland areas, all bird and other native
animal life fall silent for the duration of their presence.
Roper
River Area-Arnhem Land 1970
Jim
jim pgymy Tribe
In 1970 an American
girl, Nina Vaughn, and a male companion 'Erich' were on a photographic
expedition for an American magazine in the Roper River area of Arnhem
Land. One night out in the scrub some distance from their camp, and
wafting down river, they could hear the faint sounds of singing.
Deciding to
investigate, they crept though the bush with torches, to see in the
distance a fire, and the dark forms of moving human figures.
Children they
thought at first, because of their small features.
As they watched
hidden, they realised they were witnessing some kind of secret ceremony
of small males, either naked or dressed in loin cloths of animal skins,
dancing around in a circle.
Nina and Erich
decided to leave and crept back to their camp. Returning later the next
day, they found the ceremonial site deserted.
When they eventually
reached Mataranka, south-east of Katherine, they told their story to
a local stockman, who surprised them by saying, they had probably witnessed
a ceremony performed by one of the secretive little Jim Jim pygmy tribes
said to roam the Gulf country.
Mildura
1970
Huge
stone Megatools
Since an initial discovery
by workmen near Mildura on the north-western border with NSW in 1970,
numbers of huge stone megatools have been frequently unearthed by farmers,
on properties bordering the Murray River into south Australia.
They are also turning up
in the desert country west of Broken Hill in far western NSW. Aboriginal
elders who have examined them claim the largest specimens were made
by the Narragun, while those smaller [but still impossible for normal
humans to lift and use] implements were those of the Tjangara.