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 4

During 1970 I interviewed an old fossicker from Adelaide who, about 1960, in the company of another mate had experienced a meeting with a Jimbra family that they would be most unlikely to forget. Andy Hoad and his mate Bret Taylor left their wives for a couple of days' prospecting out from Kalgoorlie where they all lived at the time. The men used a tin hut up in the Lake Ballard area to the north. Andy's story follows.

'We had just arrived and unpacked our truck this particular weekend when we noticed a bad, rotting-type smell about the shed. No dead animal anywhere in sight, so we wondered what had caused the stink.' We went off later with our equipment to work a favourite location on a dried-up creek-bank-always good for gemstones there. Anyway, my mate soon got the feeling we were being watched. He kept on looking over his shoulder, and soon even 1 got the same uneasy feeling.

"There was a stand of scrub further along the creek and it was from here we suddenly heard voices-gutteral sounds is a better description. Looking in that direction we could see dark shapes moving in the tree cover. Thinking it was people, Bret called out, 'Who's there, at which a seven-foot, dark brownish-haired, long-breasted female 'ape' emerged, standing in a stooped upright position, to be joined by a younger female of about six feet. Then, to our further horror, a huge nine-foot male appeared. The nearest creature you could compare them with would probably be the gorilla.

"We had no firearms, only our picks and shovels for protection. Regaining our composure, we kept the picks and ran back along the creek. Ahead of us were the sounds of crashing and screeching tin sheeting, and we knew something was happening to our hut. In the distance we could see another hairy gorilla-like monster, about 10 feet in height, pulling our roof and walls apart. The building was not all that sturdy so it was easy for the creature to dismantle most of it.

'We were not being pursued but hid in scrub, waiting for the chance to dash to the truck. The manlike 'ape' soon strode away and we made good our opportunity to escape."Aborigines in Kalgoorlie later told us we should never have been there, for it was the territory of the Jimbra, huge hairy animal-men who have inhabited the land since the Dreamtime. You know, we never did go back there. "

South Australia's Nullarbor Plain is the fabled home of "Tjangara", another name for the "great hairy man", and the Aboriginal people of the South Australian outback firmly believe these three-metre-or-rnore-tall giants still wander the interior. There are certain remote regions where they refuse to go unaccompanied and without firearms for fear of attack, for like other giant hominid monsters of Australia's vast interior these man-beasts (and 'woman-beasts') feed upon any Aborigines they capture.

In 1973 down at Woods Well on the south-eastern South Australian coast, south-west of Tintinara, Mr Kim Rayner and his wife Ellaine were camping in thick scrub. As they sat at their campfire around midnight they were suddenly startled by a high-pitched scream which lasted for 15 minutes, ending in a gutteral sound. At this, the Rayners climbed into their utility and locked the doors. Rabbits they had with them in a cage outside on the ground were very agitated.

Suddenly something was pushing at the rear of their vehicle, rocking it up and down. All they could see through the back window was a huge dark shape. The rocking ceased after a minute or so, and their mystery intruder walked away into the encroaching scrub. The Rayners remained in their vehicle for a long time before emerging to gather up their belongings, including the terrified rabbits, by torchlight and driving away. Within days, other campers in the same area reported finding enormous freshly-made manlike footprints in damp soil. At Tintinara a couple of weeks later, a mini busload of people was startled late one afternoon when a 2.6-metre-tall hairy man-beast strode across a dirt road from out of bushland in front of the vehicle.

Steve Moncreif, a fossicker, was exploring a dry creek-bed in the Oolea Range near Yarle Lakes on the fringe of the Great Victoria Desert one day in August 1972. Two years before, there had been a rash of reported encounters and discoveries of up to 50-cm-length footprints of the so called "Abominable Spinifex Man", better known as "Tjangara", but Steve was oblivious to these as he searched for gemstones in the dry earth. e was also oblivious to something standing above him upon a nearby high bank watching every move he made.

Detecting a bad smell, he looked about him to see, standing upon the bank six metres away, an enormous 3.3-metre-tall hairy male creature, a large stone club in its right hand. Steve froze to the spot for a moment, man and sub-man-giant staring at one another; then, grabbing his small geologist's pick for protection, he rose and slowly backed away as the man-monster stood watching him. "My Land-Rover was parked 100 yards away on a track. I figured if I could get there quickly enough I would be alright," he told a reporter later.

However, the monster, uttering a snarling sound, proceeded to jump down onto the creek-bed and dash toward Steve who by now was bounding away as fast as his legs could carry him. "But the monster was closing in fast. 1 was out of breath. I turned, aimed and hurled the pick at the creature's face. The monster 'manimal' screamed in pain, clutching its face with both hands. I quickly staggered the last yards to my vehicle. I drove out of that place in a panic and I have never been back," said Steve.

In 1989, a four-metre-tall hairy man-giant wielding a huge lump of wood for a club was claimed seen on the lower Baroo Creek near Etadunna, east of Lake Eyre. Two carloads of four-wheel-drive enthusiasts were travelling about 100 metres apart on the road between Maree and Birdsville. At a point where the road crosses over the creek, the vehicles disturbed the monster as it stood on the creek-bank close to the roadside. Both groups saw the creature which strode off along the bank and out of sight into the scrub.

The shocked bush-trekkers held a roadside discussion, compared physical descriptions, agreed it was a male, and the men in the party decided to try to track it with their rifles at the ready; but by the time they returned to the crossing and set off on foot, the man-monster had escaped.

Click here for Part 5 of Man-Apes of Eastern Australia

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