Location: Gayndah, Queensland (Plus other areas)
Event: Yowie Sightings (Various)
Date: Feb 10, 2000
Source: The Chronicle - Jim Martin.
Gayndah is not the only place in Australia where Binjour Bears, or Jongari as the Aborigine Sam Hill says they are, have been seen over the years. There have been several sightings of similar creatures all over the countryside.
Sunshine Coast Crypto- zoologist Steve Rushton runs Mega fauna Research Australia and for more than 19 years has been collecting stories about strange animal sightings throughout Australia, including south-east Queensland. Many of the sightings describe sightings of a hairy animal about a metre tall.
He has on record several hundred reported sightings of various creatures including thylacines, tiger cats, panthers, large monitor lizards, and his favorite, the hairy man or Yowie. Mr. Rushton would be happy to receive your Crypto reports.
Gayndah Aborigine Sam Hill said last week the creature sighted by Gayndah residents Shirley Humphreys and her brother Allan Bucholz was a Jongari, a member of a smaller race of people who lived beside the Aborigines. They were everywhere and called different names in different areas.
A story in the south Burnett Times in 1979 told how a former Murgon resident, Mrs. Locke, said she and her husband saw a metre tall, hairy animal standing by the side of the road near Kilkivan when they were driving from Hervey Bay to Murgon just before dusk. "It had broad shoulders and stood looking at us as we drove past," she said.
Asked by the reporter if he could explain the phenomenon, chairman of the Cherbourg Aboriginal Council at the time, Les Stewart, said there was no explanation for the sightings of the Yowie however, there was a small man called Junjurrie who was seen around there as recently as eight years ago. "He was about a metre tall and used to play with the children in the Hospital," he said. "Several adults claimed to have seen him when they heard the children laughing at night, but I don't know whether he was hairy or not."
Then there was a story in the Courier Mail in 1994 about the Junjuddis wandering around Carnarvon Gorge. According to former Carnarvon Gorge National Parks and Wildlife officer Grahame Walsh, Junjuddis were out there. They were described as just over a metre tall with a torso like a man's, limbs like an ape and smelly.
Like the Himalayan Yeti and other mythological creatures, the Junjuddi is notoriously reclusive - often glimpsed but never photographed. Aboriginal folklore describes a typical Junjuddi as hairy with an elongated head.
A timer-man Graham Griggs, who lived in Biggenden at the time the story appeared, told of being kept awake by Junjuddis while camping near Carnarvon Gorge. They would leap mischievously in the shadows outside his bush camp. They scared him so much he left.
At Charters Towiers in 1979, a youth reported being set upon by a small hairy man answering the description of a Junjuddi. The story appeared in the Melbourne Herald and the Courier Mail.
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