Location: Stuarts Point, New South Wales
Event: Yowie Encounter
Date: 2011
Time: Night
Hi Dean,
Thank you for contacting me back. I have been dying to explain what happened to someone who will understand!
This is the Excactly what happened from start to finish. I will never forget this in my life time.
My name is Michael D. I am 24 years old and I recently moved house from Newcastle NSW to Stuarts Point NSW on the Mid North Coast. My partner and I moved here in hopes of a more relaxing opportunity for life. As we were hoping to enjoy life a lot more we purchased a Holden Jackaroo, thinking it would be nice to go off road driving.
My partner's parents have lived in Stuarts Point for nearly 2 years and
were our main motivation of moving here.
When we moved here we marveled at the difference from Newcastle. This place is full of tropical life mixed in with normal "Blue Mountains" style bushland. We discovered that the local national park was full of beautiful things to look at. It is like a tropical wonderland. Full of ferns and palms, vines and lots of birds.
The national park is located on a mountain which is called "Yarahappini Mountain." It is a very rugged terrain and a lot of this mountain is only accessible by 4WD.
We had explored this mountain from almost every point we could find. It is a strange mix of vegetation.
Depending on what side of the mountain you are on the bushland seems to change, from tall gum like forests, to banksia groves to the lush rainforest on the east side where we spent a lot of our time.
It was approximately early February when we discovered the most beautiful part of the mountain. We went down a trail called Scotts trail (named after Scotts Head, a near by community, I guess) and drove for about 15mins before turning off at another trail called "Leonards Lane".
The trail started at quite a high point of the mountain and worked its way down into a very tight, well vegitated gully with a very shallow, fresh water creek at the lowest point. (It is so steep our 4wd seemed to struggle a little when we left.)
We had seen many beautiful things but this time we absolutely had to stop and marvel at the lush rainfaorest. Beautiful ferns, palms and what seemed like thousands of birds singing. It was very sheltered from the hot sky as it was very hot at that time but we felt relativley cool in the shade. We noticed there was lots of
quartz crystal in the creek and collected some for landscaping my bonsai tree's.
We left the mountain and went to my partners parents house.
When we arrived my partners father asked where i found the quartz crystal. I explained and he informed me that if you can find quartz, there's a good chance of finding gold. He also told us he heard rumours of a gold minor going missing on the mountain years ago but was skeptical about the details other than the fact he was certain he drowned.
My partners father, being an opal minor and a gem enthusiast is always someone to take good word from regarding precious metal and gem finding. Excited by his words, we promptly jumped on ebay and purchased a metal detector. But it was a few weeks later we decided to go back to the spot we found the quartz without the metal detector to see if we could find anything without it.
We took our two little dogs and headed up the mountain. We went down both trails. We got to the creek, drove through it and parked on the other side. I said to my partner it smells like wild pigs have been here recently. It stunk so bad. (I used to smell it hunting with my dad when i was young just before we found pigs).
We got out with a small garden spade and bucket. We were realy excited about being back here. We, again marveled at the rainforest and gleamed up at the staghornes in the tree tops.
We could hear the birds in the bush and as we made our way down to the creek bed, the birds stopped singing, almost in sync with one another, I looked at my partner and then was startled by a low growl and a sharp rabble of our two small dogs barking alarmingly and staring into the bush.
We went back and consoled them (which is unusual for us because they are very well behaved). I know my partner and even though we didn’t say anything to one
another I know he was startled, as was I. We continued down to the creek bed with our dogs whimpering in the background.
I went down to the left hand side of the creek and my partner turned right. As we stepped into the creek we heard a crashing noise in the bush towards the left. We said nothing and just looked at each other as if to say "I dunno what that was" and kept going but we were both quite spooked.
It sounded like a very very large kangaroo but it wasn't a typical noise a roo would make. It was as if something was breaking its way through the bush and when we stopped it did too.
We kept going. I was afraid to make any noise, because I do come from an aboriginal family, my mother always told me to watch out for bad spirits in the bush.
I tip toed across the exposed rocks ot of the creek. I could only go about 15 meters before a large fallen tree blocked my path. I forgot about what we were there for and just became very alert to my surroundings. I turned and seen that my partner had made his way about the same distance to the right of where we entered. I moved back toward him and when I was about 5 meters to him, near the point were we entered, we heard the same crashing noise (like snapping branches and heavy thudding steps).
By this point I was scarred and it was then my partner confided in me that he was near 100% certain that something large growled at him from behind the tree line. I tried to brush it off, mocking my mother to conceal my fear I said "oooohhhh there's bad spirits here".
I made it sound like I joke even though I believed what I was saying.
Trying to show each other we weren’t scared, together we moved down the right side of the creek. After about 10-15m there was a bend and up through the bend under fallen tree's and branches there was some sort of rockish cave like area.
Still scared, I barely made a noise. My partner, now we were together was
less afraid and started picking up large pieces of quartz and smashing them open on the exposed rocks in the creek bed, thinking he would find gold.
We were there for literally 5 minutes before the feeling of being watched or even stalked became too much for me and I asked if we could leave.
During this whole time I did not take my eyes of the tree line. I literally pretended to look around for gold and gems but kept scouring the bush trying to see behind the line of sight.
My partner agreed to leave and consoled by his words I was so happy i let my defense down, turned, bent down and as a I grabbed a piece of quartz from the creek bed. As I was rising from picking this piece of quartz up, an ice cube sized rock came flying out of the bush behind me and ricocheted around the creek bed
bouncing off creek bed stones.
I screamed. My partner freaked out too. Something had thrown a rock at us
from behind the tree line. I said seriously this time "There is definitely bad spirits here let's get the f*ck out of here" and we turned away from the tree line again and another rock came from out of the bush in our direction and ricocheted in the creek bed.
We literally moved as quick as we could and got out of there.
We never seen anything but we can only describe the fact which we noticed;
No birds singing our dogs barking like a scary stranger lurking around crashing in the bush (and I do have to emphasise the size of this thing was HUGE, almost like a gorilla) we had things thrown at us deep growling.
We also noticed that throughout the thicker parts of the mountain, snapped off branches.
And a dirty, gross smell. I can’t describe it, and it wasn’t the smell of the bush, it was something "wild".
We were deep in the bush after it had been raining and there was no other car tracks in front or behind us.
Now having our metal detector we have not been back to the mountain since this happened. I have researched yowies and bunyips and I know what turramulli the giant quinkin must have been now.
Dean, I have never been so certain in my life that my partner and I encounter a yowie and somehow we threatened it. Maybe we were too close to it's home or it had young, I do not know. But after I read a report on your website from Scotts Head, I knew then I was not the only person who had an encounter such as this in our area.
Scotts head from my home town of Stuarts Point is 20 mins away with Yarahappini
mountain in between. I think what we may have found could possibly be a water hole they may use or somewhere they keep cool in summer.
We have both been instrumental of telling people what has happened but have been met with nothing but laughter and doubt to which we both find a bit offensive. My partner and I are pretty much conservatives and it takes a lot for us to believe. But we do believe now, we truly, truly do.
I really do hope that this account and my opinions may be of some help to your research and would love the opportunity to answer any questions you may have. Please do contact me again because your opinions would be much appreciated and I guess, comforting, thinking that we are not going both mad.
Anyways thank you again.
Yours Truthfully
Michael D.
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