Location: Thomson Dam
Event: Yowie Encounter
Date: 2006
I feel as though I should report two incidents I've had, yes years after, because I still think about it from time to time.
I am an active hunter and back when I was living in Melbourne me and a mate used to chase samba up in the Victorian highlands. We had a camping spot that we would frequent regularly. The camping spot was just next to a weir that feeds into the Thomson Reservoir a nice spot to cross over the creek.
One this trip however, something was not right from the time we set up to the time we left. We got there early in the evening after leaving work straight away that afternoon on Friday. Whilst setting up I felt as though we were being watched, as we continued I could hear a low murmur, like someone was talking really low and at a distance. I put this down to an overactive mind and tried to shake it off. After a while I noticed that my mate was also kinda looking over his shoulder. That's when I asked, 'can you hear that?'. He responded, yes. We knew we weren't going insane so we made sure people knew we were there by letting off a rifle shot, just in case it was other hunters.
As we settled in for the night and started the camp fire the murmuring got louder, by this stage it was constant and becoming weird. The murmur became louder, non-decipherable voices that now were many. Higher pitched, lower pitched. We knew then we were definitely being watched.
As it was getting late, we chose to head to sleep. This is when is got very weird and very real.
At roughly 2am we were woken by a God all mighty duel tone mega decibel screaming. It was not human, it was long, longer than anybody to sustain a note for. It was loud, a noise I could never replicate if I tried. My mate asked if I could hear it, I said of course I can f#@king hear it. As I always slept with a shotgun up there in case of wild dogs I said to my mate if the noise comes any closer I'm cutting through your tent and firing two warning shots.
This screaming went on for at least 20 minutes. Eventually it disappeared. It was a sleepless night from then on. After basically lying there we got up with the sun, we were greeted with our campsite being completed turned over, there wasn't anything that had not been touched. Our food supplies, in a lockable esky was opened were everywhere, not eaten, just strewn around the place. Shotgun shells were everywhere, which we found that a few were missing, not lost, missing. This was not feral dogs, dogs would have eaten our bacon, bread and other perishables, dogs also don't have fingers or thumbs to work lock mechanisms. Needless to say we packed up and headed up to a different spot a few kilometres away and hunted.
The next was not far from the original encounter. Further up the road there is a disused and abandoned mine. This was used for the crushed rock for the Thompson reservoir. As there is a survey marker up there the views are pretty good and the track easy to walk up. Along the way there is a heavily ferned creek. We were there just coming up to sunset.
We, there were four of us this trip, headed up the track no problems. Scouted around for any deer signs and glassed the area for a bit.
It was when we were coming down that I heard it. We were being followed, it was in the ferns along the other side of the shallow creek. I mentioned this to the lads and they told me f#@k off. So I told them to take three steps and stop. We did this and sure enough in the ferns a half step after we stopped. To make sure we weren't being paranoid we did this at different intervals again and again. Same result, a half step after we stopped. We looked through our scopes into the fern line but couldn't see anything of shape or creature. As the light was dropping quickly it became harder and harder to see.
I told the boys to make sure they had their rifles ready with the safeties off. I walked backwards behind them as they moved quietly down towards the car. I told my mate who was driving to go ahead and get the car ready so I could jump in and we could leg it. Once we got there my mates got in and then I turned and made my way straight to the 4x4, I swear that I heard something pick up pace towards but I dare not turn round.
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