Location: Ashford, New South Wales
Event: Yowie Sighting
Date: 1980
Time: 9-10pm
My family and I were down at the Severn River fishing at the McIntire River junction. My brother and I had set some lines further up the river, and we went up to check the lines at night. We had an old Dolphin torch that was dim.
A couple of hundred metres up the river there was some steep country. There was a gap in the rocks that we would go under and come up onto a steep part of the river bank which levels out above. Just as we came through the rocks and onto the steep part of the bank, at about 5 metres, this thing has taken off up the bank. The bank was on about a 45 degree incline.
It was a Human type figure. It was too steep to walk, so it was going up using its arms and legs as you or I would if we were in a hurry – using your hands. It was a dirty brown cappuccino type of colour, and dirty patchy non uniform colour. It was hairy all over. It had darker streaks here and there, but it was hair all over. Hard to say but maybe 3 or 4cm. Shaggy in patches.
We’ve grown up of farms and grown up in the bush, and you know what a fox smells like, you know what a pig smells like, you know what a goat smells like – this thing was absolutely putrid with the smell of B.O. Occasionally, you will run into somebody that has really really bad B.O., but if you times that by about 5, that’s how bad this was. It wasn’t like the smell of any other animal that I’ve smelt.
It had nowhere else to go other than up this 45 degree bank. The height was hard to gauge because it was on all fours getting up this bank as quickly as it possibly could, but my guess would be between 6 and 7ft. It was bloody solid. It was heavily built. I don’t care how hairy a goat is, but when you see a goat running up a hill, there’s not much legs on there is there!! This was no goat. It was almost like a Gorilla build. Really thick set, especially in the chest.
A few weeks ago, I found a print in a cow pat only 6 or 7kms away from my 1980 sighting. I was out there doing some spraying, looked over and thought it looked like a footprint. I walked over for a closer look and it was a footprint in the middle of the cow pat.
The most frustrating part, is where the toes are, is right at the edge of it. From what I can see, you can where the little toe is but you can’t clearly see the others. Where I found the footprint, we only just a week before found 3 dead calves in the paddock – or what was left of them.
On another occasion I swear I saw a panther or a bloody big cat (6ft long), but that was nowhere near there.
© Copyright AYR
Australian Yowie Research - Data Base
www.yowiehunters.com