Location: Rosebank, New South Wales
Event: Yowie Sighting
Date: January, 2003
Time: 11.30pm
(Female Witness)
It sounded like a HUGE Kangaroo – Australian Encounter:
Hello Dean and the Australian Yowie Research team. My name is Susan and I live in South Australia. I’d been watching a lot of ‘log cabins and wilderness’ videos on YouTube recently and then your AYR channel popped up. I was shocked. I had no way to understand or process an experience that I had in 2003, in upper NSW which was VERY scary and almost supernatural. I had actually blocked it out for a long time and don't talk about it... as it brings up a whole lot of fear and anxiety. After exploring your website and hearing personal testimonies I realised that what I had experienced was a Yowie encounter.
In January 2003 I was traveling solo on a holiday in upper NSW. A friend had moved to Ballina so I went to stay with her as well as explore Byron Bay and surrounding areas. I had explored many small towns over 4 weeks and decided it was time to come back home, but not before booking myself into a retreat.
I have tried to find the exact location and name for the retreat but have been unsuccessful. I do recall it was very close to a town called Rosebank and it was off of Rosebank Road. The large property had a main house set up on a hill. It had a large main lounge room with open fire, a communal kitchen and dining area surrounded by big windows which looked out onto the property. The owner was an older Yogi had lived there for years but I recall his health was not good so I would assume he had probably passed away by now.
People could stay in a separate guest house or single cabins, I chose a cabin, I was looking forward to a week of peace and serenity! There was a dirt road winding down from the main house to the Retreat Centre, it was probably about a 10 minute walk. The road was barely wide enough for 1 car, it had very thick dense 'scrub' on the Eastern side and a few metres of cleared bush on the other.
The 4 day retreat that I was on had a large group of about 25 people and it was lots of fun we were walking up and down the dirt road each day. Doing yoga, meditation, cooking meals, swimming in the creek, enjoying ourselves, it was awesome!
I decided to stay on the property for a few more days before my flight home. There was also another group using the retreat centre. So I relaxed, reading my book and soaking up nature’s beauty. I've always been a Spiritual person, happy to be social but also very at home on my own.
The group invited me to come join them in the Retreat Centre for their final dinner and gathering. They said bring along instruments so I took my hoop drum. It was a great evening. There was a woman there with long jet black hair and a little voice inside me said 'You're going to have a conversation with her'. As it turned out I didn't get to speak with her... not at that time.
The evening finished around 11:30pm and everyone jumped into cars to drive back up the winding dirt road to the main house. I was feeling so energized and happy that I said that I would walk back up the hill on my own. I had NO idea how dark or quiet it was going to be when the Retreat Centre lights turned off and the cars disappeared up the road!
It was only a half moon in the sky above my left shoulder, luckily it illuminated the dirt road which was a sandy colour, and gave a little light to the scrub. I had my drum and began gently drumming and singing as I walked up the road. I know that I was feeling completely full of joy and gratitude and I was thanking the Universe for having such a beautiful experience at this place.
As I was drumming and walking up the road I could hear a crunching and cracking sound coming from the scrub up ahead. It was quite rhythmic, about 2 seconds apart and was becoming louder and louder. I thought 'What is making that noise? That sounds like a huge kangaroo or something'.
I stopped drumming and walking to listen... the loud cracking noise continued and sounded like a large person stepping through the bush... but I knew the scrub was so dense and SO thick it did not make any sense that an animal OR person would be walking through there! Then I had a sensation of dred flow through me. My next thought was 'Spirit I DON'T want to see anything scary'.
Just then about 15 metres ahead of me stepping out of the scrub and onto the road was a huge Being. Completely black from head to toe, like a massive shadow. I'm 6ft tall and he must have been about 8 foot high and at least 3 foot wide at the shoulders. His arms were hanging down at his sides.
The half moon above me was shining directly onto this Being and yet I could not make out any distinguishable human features. I stood there for about 15 seconds looking directly at him and feeling like he was looking directly at me. I felt strangely calm in my body but my mind was scrambling trying to understand who or what I was looking at. He was HUGE but I could not see anything except black. He looked like a very tall man, solid and broad, with very long arms. And so of course I did what anyone might do in such a strange situation. I called out "hello". A bit like when you call out to someone at your front door when you’re not sure who has just arrived.
This is when this Being, almost in slow motion and from his upper body first, turned around and proceeded to walk back into the scrub! After that happened, I had an incredible surge of adrenaline rush through my whole body, my mind thought 'SHIT, I have to walk up the road, past him, to be able to get to my cabin!... and ‘I AM A WOMAN, BY MYSELF in the middle of the bush with some huge weird man wandering around!' Instinct and courage took over and I began beating my drum and my legs just started motoring up that hill, I glanced into the scrub where he had returned but didn’t see anything… and after that I did NOT look back.
When I got inside my cabin I realised I could NOT lock the door and this is when panic set in, I felt trapped. I grabbed my phone and called my friend Doug back in Adelaide. I was explaining to him what had happened when the loudest bang you could imagine came down on the roof directly above my head! I FROZE. Doug said "what the hell was that?" I said "I don't know, I DON’T KNOW! but I am going to make a run for the main house so stay on the phone with me." I’m the sort of person that would confront a threat and fight but in that cabin I felt cornered so staying there was definitely NOT an option.
Now what happened next was very bizarre. As I opened the cabin door and began running towards the main house, I had a huge fruit bat swoop down and almost smacking me in the middle of my forehead making me fall backwards onto the ground. This was when I lost my shit and lay there shaking in fear and laughing & crying at the same time. This is when a person came out of a cabin up the hill and I really cannot remember too much of what happened next other than I went into complete shock, I felt like I was going to vomit and went with her into her cabin and stayed there until morning… I couldn’t talk about the experience and lay in bed shaking all over, understandably I did not sleep a wink.
Very early I went up to the main house kitchen to get some water, still feeling completely traumatised and guess who was there? The woman with the long black hair she said “good morning” but then soon realised I was in distress and asked me if I was okay. I poured out my whole encounter to this woman and incredibly she validated it and said 'oh wow you've seen the tall man'. Apparently, her daughter had an encounter a few years back. She described him as an ancient Being
that lived in the bush. I said “but he’s real because I heard him and saw him” she said ‘he IS real but also a Spirit.’ She asked what I was doing at the time and I said I was drumming and singing and feeling so much joy and giving thanks... she said that “he was attracted by my energy and light.”
The next night was my final night in NSW so I packed my things in the day and decided to stay in the main house. The elderly owner went to bed very early so I was left alone in the lounge room. I was reading when I had a very strange sensation of being watched and just then the 2 cats in the room both sat up and stared straight out the window so I said in my mind “Oh NO no more!” and went to bed, with headphones on and I was thankful to leave the next day.
I tried to share my experience with my family and they could see that something traumatic and very real had happened to me but they couldn't really understand, in fact I still thought it was a tall ‘man’ for a long time. A few people mentioned Yowies when I spoke of the encounter but that sounded ridiculous to me. After learning more and hearing others share their stories its helped me so much.
I want to thank you Dean and the AYR team... this has been the first opportunity for me to write out, share and process this experience and now I can actually feel grateful and privileged to have had an encounter with these Beings. Even though it was very scary I feel like I now have some understanding… and at least I know what made that loud bang on my roof… probably a huge bloody rock!
I truly believe that at this time ALL secrets are being revealed and all the darkness is coming to the Light. Our community and Our stories hold power and wisdom.
Warmest regards, Susan from SA.
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