Ape-Men in Australia by Rex Gilroy Copyright (c) 2001 Rex Gilroy. This article is composed of extracts from my 2001 Yowie book: “Giants From the Dreamtime” -The Yowie in Myth and Reality. Copyright (c) 2001 Rex Gilroy, Uru Publications.

[Released in March, 2001, click here for Ordering Details]

The Australian Yowie Story

Yowies in Australia
Man-Apes of Eastern Australia

Excerpts From Chapter 16 Mysterious Australia 1995 - Rex Gilroy Parts 1-13

Click at End of each Article for Parts 2-16

Part 14-16 Is The Updated Version From the 2001 Yowie Book
" Giants From The Dreamtime - The Yowie in Myth & Reality."

Part 3

Aborigines of the Kulin tribe of the Yarra Flats region of Victoria, feared man-ape monsters known as the "Lo-An". They drove the Kulin Aborigines from their hunting grounds thereabouts, to live on the eels and other aquatic life of the area which the females (who were somewhat smaller than the males) cooked in earth ovens. It appears the Aborigines here, as elsewhere, often confuse the tool-making, fire-making giant hominids with the more primitive yowies.

According to legend, the Lo-An eventually followed migrating swans to the Western Port area, then followed the coastline until they reached Wilson's Promontory where they made their home. The former tribes of eastern New South Wales possessed a mass of yowie folklore far beyond the scope of this book to cover, so I shall return to the Blue Mountains west of Sydney to give just one example-that of the Frog Hollow yowie myth, better known as "the Gubri Man and the Hoori Woman", which is described thus.

"He is a giant who has burning red eyes that peer from an oversized head, and great big thick lips surrounding an enormous mouth, and he lives with his female counterpart in a rock shelter in Frog Hollow. His female counterpart, the Hoori Woman, is equally large, an exceptionally ugly creature, and she possesses a fearful voice." This is how old Aborigines described the male and female yowies that, long before the coming of the white man, inhabited a large rock formation that now overlooks the old Catalina racing circuit on the western side of Katoomba township,

Both creatures were avoided but respected by the Aborigines who inhabited the area. The Gubri Man and Hoori Woman were cannibalistic, feeding upon any Aborigine unfortunate enough to be caught by them. Both creatures were said to be covered in long hair. They could be spotted often at their rock shelter, feeding upon roots and berries or animal, and uttering strange sounds to one another. They would emit loud howling sounds at any Aborigine they saw spying on them.

At the time of writing (1993), I have been researching the yowie mystery for 36 years, and at age 49 I still have no intention of quitting the search. Heather, my wife of the past 21 years, has joined me in this quest. With at least 5,000 yowie reports in my files and a growing collection of footprint plaster-casts of the creatures, any normal person would seem justified in saying that we have more than enough to prove the existence of Australia's Bigfoot. But as nothing short of actual physical proof-such as fossil or recent skeletal remains or a living specimen-will ever convince the scientific community of the existence of the 'hairy man', our search must continue.

I feel privileged to be the 'father' of yowie research, but it has not been easy-a lifetime of ridicule from both ignorant laymen and scientists alike, not to mention the often comic approach of the media. Yet, despite the disbelievers, I continue to receive reports from across the country. Not a week goes by without letters and phone calls from people who genuinely believe they have seen one of these creatures, heard of other sightings or else found possible footprints of one of the hominids in some remote part of the country.

As an open-minded field naturalist and historical researcher/archaeologist with a lifetime's interest in all 'unexplained' phenomena, I have always been fascinated by the 'known' as well as the 'unknown' in nature. I realise that lack of evidence does not necessarily mean lack of existence for any rarely seen or 'unknown' animal or hominid species.

I am often asked why I persist in my search, year after year, without finding any actual physical proof of these Australian man-beasts. For me, the answer is threefold:

firstly, I seek to vindicate ancient Aboriginal traditions of the yowie;

secondly, I seek to obtain the necessary physical evidence, such as skeletal remains, to put before scientists to have them accorded the same protective legislation given to any other rare life-form; and

thirdly, even if my searches fail to find this evidence, at least my wife and I are privileged to see magnificent wilderness areas largely unknown to most city-bound Australians.

The historic period 'hairy man' reports lend credibility to Australian relict hominid research. Why? Because, as has been shown, the public and also the press of those times took them seriously generations before the ignorant tongue-in-cheek reporting regrettably practised by today's 'gentlemen and women of the press'. But, even today, reports often emerge which these reporters cannot easily dismiss, and it is to these modern-day accounts that we now turn. Much of the publicity surrounding yowie sightings in modern times has centered upon the eastern Australian region.

But what of the mass of reports hardly ever mentioned in the press from Australia's western half What has been happening in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and South Australia lately? South of the Kimberley Plateau lies the vastness of the Great Sandy Desert, one of the fabled homes of the dreaded Jinkas", also known as the "Jim bra"-monstrous three-to-four-met re-tall, powerfully-built gorilla-like beings which the Aborigines feared. People venturing into lonely parts of the interior have periodically seen these Gigantopithecus-like hairy men or else have found their massive footprints as further evidence of their presence.

'I nearly fainted when I came across these huge ape-like tracks in the soil. I never thought such monsters ever existed outside Aboriginal myths and legends," said one lady, Mrs Joan Mc Kendrick, when she came across several two-foot-six-inch-long footprints while prospecting with her husband Tom near Lake Tobin in the south~east corner of the Great Sandy Desert, one day in 1972. To the north of here lies Jimberingga. This community bears a name which is actually another variant of Jimbra, the other local name for these monsters, and it, too, is an area of 'hairy man' sightings in recent times.

One day in 1977, two young property workers, brothers Vince and Trevor Collins, were driving a truck along a bush track about 10 kilometres north of Jimberingga when they heard a loud crash on their cabin roof, then another on the back of the vehicle. Stopping to check, they realised two large rocks had been hurled at their vehicle from roadside scrub. Looking back along the road, they beheld a horrifying sight. "A massive, upright-walking, black-haired, gorilla-like monster emerged from bushes onto the road, waving a large tree limb menacingly at us and making an unearthly, terrible, loud snarling sound.

"He was only 100 yards away and beginning to stride towards us, all the time brandishing the tree limb at us. We could make out his sex and that he was very hairy, and had a large gorilla-like head-a nightmarish, ugly brute. By now we were frantically climbing back into our truck, and as I increased speed, he had already begun running swiftly in long strides toward us, waving the tree limb and screaming. Our last sight of him was from a distance as we drove off along the road. He stood there for a moment watching our escape, threw the limb aside and strode off into the trees," said Vince in an interview with me in 1979.

Many years before, in 1952, mineral surveyors working in a remote area on the edge of the Gibson Desert in the Brassey Range found over a dozen monstrous footprints, over two feet in length, embedded in drying creek mud about a day old. An Aboriginal guide with the party told the men that a Jinka monster" was nearby and that they should leave the area right away. The men heeded his advice and promptly abandoned their camp!

Click here for Part 4 of Man-Apes of Eastern Australia

Excerpts From Chapter 16 Mysterious Australia 1995 - Rex Gilroy Parts 1-13