Australian Yowie Research Centre Est...1976 by Rex Gilroy for the sole purpose of Scientific Study of the Australian Hairy - man
logo
logo
logologo logo logo
Rex and Mr Stapleton

Results of the Gilroy's, South Coastal NSW
Mountain Ranges Yowie Expedition
Winter of 1979

by Rex Gilroy
Copyright © Rex Gilroy 2008.

This investigation, part of the on-going “Operation Yowie” project, aimed at gathering good circumstantial, as well as possible physical evidence, on the existence of these relict hominids. It must be emphasized here that the world ‘Yowie’ meant “Hairy man” or “Hairy people”, not because these hominids were/are covered in long thick hair, but because of the animal [ie marsupial] hide garments they wore like the early Aboriginal tribespeople.

Thus the Yowie is no hairy ape-like monster as many people mistakenly believe, but a primitive tool-making, fire-making hominid. In fact, all available evidence points to the Yowie as being surviving remnant populations of Homo erectus, our immediate ancestor.


Photo's Up December

South Coastal NSW Mountain Ranges
in the Winter of 1979
By Rex Gilroy

North of Batemans Bay lies Sussex Inlet, which has long been the scene of plenty of Doolagahl/Yowie activity stretching back well into the 19th century. About June in the winter of 1978, Sussex Inlet resident Alf Collier was exploring bushland in the mountains of nearby Morton National Park when he found long strands of hair caught in the branch of a shrub on the side of Wandandian Mountain. The hair seemed unlike any normal human hair.

Nearby Alf found young wattle trees with 8 cm thick trunks broken 1 m above the ground, and which had then been torn down the centre, exposing Witchetty Grub holes, obviously done by someone or something to get at the grubs, presumably for food. Above these trees Alf smelt a powerful stench. He had smelt this stench on two other occasions in the same area earlier during April 1978.

Alf's father-in-law, Mr Norm Allsopp, about 1912 saw a brown-haired, man-like beast in scrub at the foot of Sassafras Mountain 30 km west of Sussex Inlet. With him were two large dogs which cowered and ran off terrified at the sight of the hairy manbeast.

According to Mr Collier, at a place called '12 Mile' during April 1979, he followed a creature leaving a strong musty smell for a kilometre through the dense scrub, but the mystery hominid eluded him in inaccessible terrain.

Mr. Collier, who says he has often had the feeling of being watched by 'something' when exploring remote bushland in the Wandandian Mountain range forests, offered to lead my wife Heather and I into the area during our Yowie expedition on the south coastal NSW mountain ranges in the winter of 1979.

He told us of some of his experiences in the Wandandian forest country. Only a few months prior to our expedition he was exploring among large rocks when he found great slabs of bark torn from nearby Terpentine trees and erected under rocks as a crude shelter. Surrounding the site Alf smelt the familiar strong, musty stench.

cont...below

Report a Yowie sighting from anywhere in Australia

cont....

The weather turned cold, damp and misty as we drove our car up Wandandian Mountain road, which took us 65 km deep into the range. Leaving our vehicle to follow a disused forestry commission track on foot we examined broken wattle saplings, up to 8 cm thick, that Alf had found recently and which had been snapped off up to 1.6 m above the ground, and split down the centre by 'something' as if to get at the Witchetty Grub caterpillars burrowing inside. The area had been drenched with rain overnight and mist was shrouding the area. We found traces of large footprints embedded in the muddy, grassy forest soil and a faint musty smell still hung about the site.

Soon afterwards we found several indistinct footprints leading through ferns. These we measured. They were 22 cm wide at the heel and 60 cm long, but the toe impressions had been weathered away by the rain. Near the footprints Alf found a large tuft of sword grass, pulled almost out of the ground, an act requiring considerable strength.

We also found a large Woolybutt tree sapling broken in half and twisted, something that no normal human being would have been capable of. Next to it a large wattle sapling had been pushed over, its roots ripped out of the ground. A few metres away from this was a long thick rotting tree trunk 30 cm in thickness, the top of which had been ripped away by something searching for grubs and other insects.

As we continued our search nearby, we found another large wattle sapling pushed over and in the wet forest soil a number of footprints measuring 60 cm long by 30 cm wide but the toes were again indistinct owing to the rain. I also found another footprint 60 cm long by 22 cm wide across the toe area. The heel measured 18 cm wide by 19 cm long. The prints were near a thicket of wattle saplings, most of which had been broken over and the ground disturbed, as if a search for beetles had been conducted.. The prints were probably only a day old. Here also we could still detect a faint musty odour.

We also had the distinct feeling that we were not alone. No sounds of birds or any other animal life could be heard. Pouring rain forced us to abandon our investigation at this point and we made our way back to the car. However, Alf directed us further along the Wandandian road to the area where he had earlier found the long tuft of hair.

The location was above a 20 m high cliff overlooking a valley into which we found a way down through a cutting to the dense forest below. Hereabouts, strewn like giant's toy building blocks were enormous, monolithic blocks of sandstone/ironstone containing masses of crevasses, caves and ledges. The area showed no signs of previous human visitation, but the unmistakable feeling that we were being watched by something was present. The situation was made all the more eerie by the lack of bird sound in the trees. After almost getting ourselves lost amid the monolithic blocks and dense forest terrain we finally found our way back out of the mist-shrouded valley.

Yowie Expedition Page - Click Here

Yowie Homepage | Entire Web site © Rex & Heather Gilroy 2008 | URU Publications ® ™ Rex & Heather Gilroy. All Rights Reserved | Mysterious Australia
Australian Yowie Research Centre Est...1976 by Rex Gilroy for the sole purpose of Scientific Study of the Australian Hairy - man
logo
logo
logologo logo logo