Giants From the Dreamtime the Yowie In Myth And Reality

Mr Bates-research into the Yowies 1905

Yowie Stories

This author is indebted to researcher Mr E.L. Bates, for the great wealth of material gathered by him, and which he so generously provided me with, when I first began preparations for this book during the late 1970's. It is this material which now makes up much of this chapter.

The region covered by his investigations has remained virtually unchanged since pioneering days; rugged, forest-covered hills and mountains, rising up out of the forests of the Hunter Valley and New England Ranges, making up a vast expanse of often impenetrable wilderness.

Vast expanses into which few white men [if any] have ever penetrated. It is from these wilderness regions that, today hairy manbeasts [and womanbeasts!] are claimed to emerge, to wander onto the edge of lonely farms, leaving their sometimes huge footprints in the mud of waterholes as 'calling cards', before retreating back into their wilderness habitat, high amid those cloudline peaks. Mr. Bates, first heard of the Yowies about 1905, while a child growing up at Caroda, which lies between Narrabri and Bingara.

Bullaburra 1905

5 ft tall hairy ape-like Creature

It was in a deep forested fern-covered gully east of Bullaburra one day in 1905, that a Sydney botanist, Mr C. E. Peel, was exploring for specimens, when he caught sight of a 5 ft tall, hairy, ape-like female creature grubbing for roots on the forest floor. Mr Peel kept quiet, hidden among ferns watching her every move. He watched as she fed upon young plant shoots and roots, then she moved on, clambering over rocks. He followed her at a safe distance as the strange female moved on two legs deeper into the forest. However, she moved too fast for him and he soon lost sight of her.