Location: Roxby Downs, South Australia
Event: Yowie Sighting
Date: 1995
11 years old, Jarrod Nicholson, his mate Fred and three younger boys rode their bikes to a secluded dam about 30 minutes from Roxby Downs. “We were there no longer than 20 minutes”, Jarrod recalls, “when the youngest member of the group complained that someone in a fur suit was stalking the bush (desert) around the huge clay pan we were in … but nobody else saw it.
About an hour passed … before me and Fred saw it running … crouching … to another hiding spot. He stopped there behind a small dune and kept watching. “The three younger lads started heading back [but] Fred and I were too curious to leave and crouched near the dam … watching him. Ten minutes passed with no movement, so we proceeded carefully towards the thing.
We … closed half the gap, when the beast became enraged … and stood up, revealing its true size. The thing was around six foot, maybe seven foot, very lanky and skinny, with tannish coloured hair or fur similar to a camel’s covering its entire body except around the eyes. I was too scared to get any better … look at it. “He started towards us and that was it. We turned and ran as fast as we could to the bikes … pedalling our hearts out, not looking back for a second. Halfway home my chain fell off …
I screamed for my friend to stop, but he kept going (“better you than me”, I suppose). I just dropped the bike and ran all the way home … I was in trouble with the old man for leaving my bike behind. “That was … the scariest thing to ever happen to me (and I’ve seen some scary things working underground for the last four years).
At the time we believed that it wanted to attack us, but now I think he was just after a drink and us little bastards were in his way.” [It is worth noting that in The History of Australian Exploration From 1788-1888, Ernest Favenc wrote about two squatters named Oakden and Hulkes who, while searching for good grazing land to the west of Lake Torrens in 1851, were told by Aborigines that ape-like creatures were sometimes encountered in the area. Roxby Downs is only 80 km west of Lake Torrens].
Email from Jarrod Nicholson to Australian Yowie Research, August 17, 2006.
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