Location: Kiandra, New South Wales
Event: Yowie Encounter
Date: 1980s
When I was younger my aunty and uncle lived in Albury and I lived on the South Coast. Each year during school holidays they would come from Albury (via Kiandra and the Tumut Power Stations) to visit us .
I remember one year when they arrived at our place my aunty was extremely shaken by something. The following is what I was told happened. I have asked my aunty on numerous occasions about this incident and each time her story is exactly the same.
She didn't say anything to anybody other than our family at the time for fear of being branded a lunatic (and I have to admit we still have a little joke about her "yowie" sighting) and to this day will not travel the route from Kiandra through to Albury via the Tumut Power Stations.
It was during the half yearly holidays when they were heading from Albury to the South Coast to visit us. Once you leave Tumbarumba and start heading over the mountains past the Tumut Power Stations and through to Kiandra there are no public areas in which you can stop for a toilet break.
You simply have to stop the car and go on the side of the road.
They had traveled a fair distance from Albury past the Power Stations and had just passed the turn off to Mount Kosciusko by a few kilometres. The sun was going down and my aunty decided she needed to go to the toilet before it got to dark.
My uncle stopped the car and my aunty headed out into the bushes on the side of the road to do her business. As she squatted down she looked over her left shoulder into the bush .
About 10 metres away from her a large creature stood up from behind a bush and started heading towards her (well at least that is what she thought it was doing).
Before she could even finish what she was doing she had pulled up her pants and ran to the car screaming. My uncle upon hearing her screams opened the passenger door ready for her to jump in. They took off and did not stop driving until they hit the RTA depot in Kinadra (which is about a good half hour- 40 minute drive from where this all happened).
My aunty was obviously petrified and the screams that my aunty had let out at the sight of the creature had frightened my uncle so much that neither of them said a word to each other until they hit the Depot. They stopped only long enough for my aunty to finish her business (this time she went no further than the open car door) and high tailed it out of there with my aunty explaining to my uncle what had happened along the way.
My aunty claimed that what she saw was definitely NOT a kangaroo or human. She said that it was more like a dirty brown hairy primate like creature that was almost twice her height. She said that she does not remember what it was that made her look over her shoulder in the first place but she was definitely glad she did.
She did not look back while she was running to the car so she does not know if it followed her or not.
She said that she was so frightened that even once in the car and driving away she could not bring herself to look back. She said that she did not hear the creature make any sound and that she only looked at it long enough to realise that it did not move like and was far too big to be a kangaroo.
If you have had any other sightings in this area can you please forward them on to me. I would like to pass them on to my aunty so she doesn't feel like such a lunatic after all.
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