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 6

Leaving the Snowy Mountains region for the far south coastal and inland districts, we find another area rich in 'hairy man' folklore. About 1909, a Mr Charles saw a two-metre-tall hairy man in bushland on his remote farm near the base of Mammoth Mountain outside Bega. The man-beast was observing him as he went about his work cutting timber. When he stopped to observe the hairy visitor it turned and walked off back into the scrub.

Much earlier, about 1885 at nearby Tathra, Tom Michael, a youth about 15 years of age, was working on a dairy farm. One day, while milking a cow in a paddock on the edge of thick timber, he became aware that he was not alone. Watching him inquisitively from nearby bushes, he saw a hairy ape-like female creature about 1.6 metres in height. Tom offered her some milk in a pail in an effort to attract her closer, but she turned around and ran away into the scrub.

Again, the next day, Tom saw the hairy female resting on the ground near where he'd seen her the day before, but this time he chose not to go near her and, instead, watched her until she returned to the bush. He never saw her again. According to Aborigines of the Bega district, "Doolegards" (yet another variant of the name) inhabit the Brown Mountain region. Ancient Aboriginal tradition of that area says these Doolegards were big hairy manbeast monsters who ate Aborigines in the long-ago Dreamtime.

The "Bega Monster' continues to be seen in the Bega-Brown Mountain area, and giant-sized footprints are still found in the forest country thereabouts. Further north up the coast and inland from Narooma, thence westward along the Tuross River, lies the Wadbilliga National Park situated in typical south-coast forestland. It was here in this wild country late one afternoon in October 1979 that a ranger, "Steve" (name withheld on request), was parked on a remote four-wheel-drive road at a seldom-used picnic area while he checked the surrounding forest for rubbish discarded by thoughtless people.

The time was about 4 pm, and I was thinking it was getting late and I had better leave as it was a long drive through the park back to civilisation. I was working my way back toward the Land-Rover, some 300 yards away, among the gums in the quiet forest-not a bird to be heard-when I heard some distant sounds of snapping foliage and strange, gutteral sounds. 'Someone coming,'I thought." Steve got the shock of his life and for a moment could not decide whether to make a dash through the trees for the Land-Rover or hide where he was.

"At that moment, looking in the direction of the sounds across a ferny clearing, I spotted three hairy shapes, one taller than a normal human, emerging onto the clearing about 200 feet away. In an instant I thought only one word, 'yowies'-tales of which I had heard before but never believed (but I do now!). They had not seen me, and for obvious reasons by now I was down behind some foliage, 'eating dirt'. There ahead of me were three hairy, naked ape-like forms-I had glanced a quick look through the bushes-a male of about nine feet tall, a female of six feet and a five-foot juvenile male.

I froze in disbelief, horrified that they might see me close by. The big male was very thickset, the female slender. I saw little else for I was too preoccupied in lying as close to the ground as I could to avoid being seen and perhaps attacked and killed by these 'human apes'. They wandered across the clearing away from where I lay. The last I saw of them were their backs as they continued on into the forest in the distance." For a minute or two, Steve remained where he was, just to make sure they were well and truly out of sight, then...I got to my feet and ran for the vehicle some distance away. ('Surely they must have noticed it,'I thought.) Anyway, I damn well got out of that forest and out of the park as fast as I could.

"Some weeks later I heard that two young blokes out camping thereabouts reported finding big footprints in soil on the road near where I had my experience, but heavy rain overnight washed them away before anyone could return with the boys to inspect them." "Steve" reported his story to me after publication of an article about my research into the 'hairy man of the south coast' in the local press. It is by no means the only story of its kind to come from those vast wilds.

Far south coastal NSW Aboriginal people are often too tight-lipped to speak of the many mysterious and sometimes terrifying encounters that their people have had with Doolagahl's, but here is one account that involved a young Aboriginal mother, "Julie", in the Wallaga Lake area in 1986. Her story goes that one day she left her four-year-old boy playing alone on a creek-bank facing the backyard of the family property while she hung out washing on the clothes hoist. The property is flanked on two sides by thick scrub, with scrub covering the opposite bank of the creek.

As she was surrounded by sheets on the hoist, her view of the boy was momentarily blocked. It was at this moment that she heard the little boy speaking to a "man". When she pushed aside the sheets she was horrified. Standing looking down at the little boy from a mere six feet (two metres) away, was an ugly, gorilla-like, black-haired male creature a good 2.3 metres in height, with long arms and big hands dangling at its sides. The woman later described the hominid as standing in a stooped position and having an ape-like head with the by-now-familiar thick eyebrow ridges, receding forehead and pointed skull-dome.

"When I first saw the man-beast I knew right away it was a Doolagahl. We have been taught from childhood about these monsters that live up in the mountains. I feared the Doolagahl was about to snatch up my little boy and run off with him," she told a neighbour later. However, quickly regaining her presence of mind, she picked up a shovel laying nearby and charged screaming at the creature, snatching up her child and running for the house, dropping the shovel in the process. As she reached the back door she looked back to see the hairy monster running into the creek, splashing through the almost waist-deep water to clamber up and over the opposite bank and into the thick scrub.

Several Aboriginal men and the woman's husband later searched the area, but apart from the indistinct squashed footprints embedded in the creek mud they found no other trace of the hairy monster.

Click here for Part 7 of Man-Apes of Eastern Australia

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