Location: Springbrook, Queensland
Event: Yowie Sighting
Date: 1984
This report is 24 years old, but I thought it would be worth adding to your data base of sightings, specially seeing as how Springbrook seems to be the favoured habitat of some unknown creature.
It took place in the mountains around Springbrook National Park in south eastern Queensland, Australia… to the east of Wunburra Lookout …near the Little Nerang Dam. The area is mountainous and the bush ( forest ) is thick, although not too far from towns and houses, farms etc..
In 1984 I was living on the Queensland Gold Coast. My best friend Wayne Griffiths lived in Springbrook with his parents (I think they still live in the area ) In September a friend of mine, Anna Persi, came to visit from Melbourne. Wayne and I had often used the walking trails in the national park that stem from the Gwongorella Picnic area and the Purlingbrook Falls.
We had never seen anything unusual. Anna wanted to hike into some rougher country so we parked at the Wunburra Lookout and walked downhill and south east for quite a distance, crossing the Little Nerang Creek and continuing into the national park area. We stopped on the hillside overlooking the dam and stayed there for a few hours. We commented to each other that we felt like we were being watched, and concluded that there must be someone else sharing our bush paradise. As it was late in the afternoon we set to walking back along a very vague animal trail that we had followed into the area.
At one point we were walking across the slope of a heavily wooded hill (eg not going up or down). We were walking slowly, picking our way along, about 4 metres apart. We crossed a rocky, dry creek bed running down the slope in amongst the trees. Wayne crossed it first. Anna crossed second and as she crossed she looked to her right up the creek bed.
She froze on the spot. Wayne turned around and came back and I caught up to Anna. Looking up the creek bed we all saw a human sized, black, sleek furred creature. It was squatting on a rock at the edge of the creek bed about 6-7 metres away. It seemed to be playing with a twig or something. It noticed us and I remember seeing a human-like yet ape-ish face with glistening eyes.
The facial area was black but free of fur, as were the hands and feet also. Had it not been moving, it would have been totally camouflaged by the black shadows of the bush around it. This took place in only about 30 seconds.
The creature didn’t seem to be perturbed by our presence at all.
Then we heard a strange gurgled sound and something came crashing through the bush towards the creature.
There was a brief pause and silence while the smaller creature looked behind it. Then a HUGE arm, with a hand and five normal fingers, and part of a body covered in the same black fur, reached out for the creature.
The smaller creature took the hand and the arm drew the smaller creature away. We could hear them moving through the leaves for a few seconds, but as soon as the spell was broken we bolted out of there at world record speed.
We had travelled about 100mts when there was a noise coming from behind us.
It was kind of guttural and it rose in pitch each time. If I had to compare it to anything, it was like the noise made by someone who is trying to say the alphabet while burping. I'm sure you've heard someone doing that.
It had a threatening tone to it and we picked up the pace accordingly ! Between us we later confirmed that there was a strange kind of wet-dog smell about the creatures, and that the smaller creature was almost definitely a "child". The smaller creature was about 160cm tall. Maybe a little taller.
It was wiry and gangly and it's fur was a little patchy, like a chimpanzee. When it stood up it was surprisingly very upright and erect - nothing like an ape's posture - everything like a human posture. It's arms and legs were long. There was no real flesh colouring anywhere to be seen - it was all black.
The bigger creature was the same but the arm we saw was very muscular. We agreed that we did see a suggestion of a breast as the bigger creature bent down. It was possibly a female. We did get a split second of a look at the bigger creature's face and the one thing we all three noticed was that it was lighter than the smaller creature's face. While the small creature's face kind of blended in with it's fur, the big creature's face was a markedly lighter colour than it's fur.
We’d never seen more than the odd black wallaby in this area, however, black animals are common in this thick bush as they only have to stand stock still and they vanish into the hard shadows.
We thought that these creatures might have been following us or at least observing us as we picnicked at the dam. Anna returned to Melbourne and did some research at the State Library (there was no Internet in those days !).
She found a report in a Brisbane newspaper from about 30 years previous where a couple of hikers were fishing in Little Nerang River. They had put the caught fish behind them on the bank.
They heard a noise and when they turned around they saw a huge, black-furred humanoid creature making off with their catch, into the surrounding bush. Apparently they took photos of the large footprints left in the creek-bank mud but God only knows what happened to them.
When they were hiking back to Purlingbrook Falls, they reported that something kept throwing small rocks at them with great force but they couldn’t see who or what it was.
Wayne’s family lived in a bushy area and told me that they heard weird crashings and gurglings and screeches, so often, that when they heard them at night they would good naturedly yell out “Go away Yowies !”
I hope this has all been useful to you.
Marc Savage
Windsor, Victoria
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