Location: Moore River, Western Australia
Event: Yowie Encounter
Date: Jan 1985
My experiences, which I'm still taunted about to this very day by friends and family, luckily both times I was with someone else to experience.
One Friday night in the summer of 1984/85, We were on our way to Guilderton about 1.30 hours north of Perth (on the Moore River - south-west of the Moore River National Park).
I was travelling with a female friend, we were to meet up with others at a friend's parents beach house on the Moore River mouth. We had turned off the Brand Highway, which is a main roadway to the north of our state, at Mooliabeenee and were heading towards the coast. It was here that I noticed my trusty HQ Kingswood was starting to overheat.
It didn’t take long before I had to pull over. I popped the hood, the headlights were off and I couldn’t see anything, so I returned to the car and turned them on. There was not another single light in sight, no moon either, it was pitch black. I had taken off the radiator cap, which furiously overflowed, and left it to cool before refilling it. I'd lit a cigarette when my attention was turned to something heavy coming through the bush to my right (about 1400hrs, I was facing engine bay).
I then noticed two glowing red eyes coming towards us through the scrub, which sounded as if it was quite thick. I couldn't say how far away the eyes were, maybe 30 metres. The glowing eyes were large, but still far enough for me to call my friend out of the car. She asked what I thought it could be. Stray cow, kangaroo I thought at first, but two things baffled me.
It was coming from my rear left hand side of the car which was not illuminated by my headlights, the area was pitch black and I couldn't even make out bush shapes more than a figure.
Also the eyes stayed at a level height as if it was a bloke walking, and at times It looked as if it was walking around some bushes/trees in its way. I've worked with kangaroos before and know they use their front paws to walk at the same pace as this thing, thus they’d be hunched over and the road was actually higher than the side fields/bush.
Whatever it was it was big. When it got to within 15 metres of us (and I had explained all this to my friend), I said to her jokingly "If this was a movie the crowd would be yelling, get the f*** out of there!". So with this thing still approaching at the same pace, we got into the car and I drove off with the hood half up, radiator cap off for about a kilometre before quickly stopping and literally throwing water into it before driving off again.
We weren’t scared and literally forgot about the whole incident when we reached Moore River. After an experience I had in Nepal, I read up about these creatures and to my astonishment read that Yowies eyes actually glow red. This immediately brought back the memories of that night, for at the time I had no idea what it could have been. With what I know now, I would have reversed the car to shine the lights on it.
Because I had no idea what it was, only the actual encounter is fresh in my mind, our trip there and what we said to others once getting to the beach house are hazy. It was at least six years before I started to read into them.
I was in Nepal in August 1990, it was the monsoon season and there were hardly any other tourists/trekkers around. We were camped high above Lake Pokra (to the west of Nepal, on the Mt Annapurna Circuit mountain range), the area ranged from thick jungle to the rocky snow line.
On the last night there, we were sleeping in a tent behind a small village of tea houses, I was awoken by my mate saying he had heard a Yeti screaming. I discounted his story and told him to go back to sleep, thinking he had heard a Water Buffalo giving birth or something. But he was like white and panting, so I sat up and waited as we both stared into the darkness.
Less than a minute later a loud deep scream echoed through the valley below us, I could not relate it to anything I've ever heard, the echo of the whooo scream noise was tremendous. I initially thought it may be a Snow Leopard, but the echo was of something that had huge lungs and was coming from a fair distance down the valley. Sleeping was a bit hard after that and but we didn't hear it again.
In the morning the porters (who we'd put up in the tea house on the last night as a treat) asked if we heard the Yeti, through red bleary eyes, we confirmed with them that it was indeed a Yeti we heard and they shook their head with a smile saying "we were scared for you in tent".
On various nights on our trek our Sherpa (Ming-ma Norbu Sherpa), had told us stories of Yeti encounters, attacks and unions between some remote living men and female Yeti's. Some stories seemed to have believable foundations to them, where others sounded like urban myths (have them written somewhere, can dig up if you want them).
Anyway after that I read into Yeti's, Bigfoot's and the Yowie. When I came across a section about their nocturnal habits and the way their eye's retina rods suck in any available light and glow red or yellow, the night in 84/85 all came back. Had I really got this close to one, and all i could remember was the actual encounter, don't recall any smells or noise bar the branches breaking underfoot. It's approach was kind of slow and not directly at us, it was like someone watching you but trying to keep out of sight (only we could see the glowing eyes).
Other family and friends have told me of their experiences.
My father reminded me of a camping experience where he took my younger brother and myself out overnight. That night while all rugged up in this very small two-man tent, he said there was this whistling then an owl like sound, but it was a lot longer in duration.
Later he said he thought he heard sounds as if someone was walking a small distance from the tent. I remember we set up just on the side of a track that went through a pine forest and being awake at the time and asking what the sounds may be. I'd have to ask him where we were camped, as this story like others only emerged after my interest in this subject was raised.
Another was an old friend of the family who got into Harley's and their associated crowds, was returning from a weekend of partying in Kalgoorlie at night when he saw a large grey haired object over a kangaroo carcass on the road. His wife was driving and he was the passenger in the car as he'd been drinking, his wife hadn't, as they slowed it sort of stood up (still hunched a bit) and walked into the bush.
He made her stop and reverse to the carcass point and then got out of the car. He said when he walked to the area of creatures entry into the bush (he fears nothing), but could see nothing. Then suddenly something took off in a direction away from him, he likened the sound to a rhino running through the thick scrub. He got back in the car and forgot about the incident until we got on to the subject at a family gathering.
A girl I worked with and her boyfriend are keen bush-walkers, so in conversation I quizzed her on a number of things. I asked if she had seen unusual footprints, large turds, snapped trees, saplings against other trees, scratch marks in trees etc.....
Apparently she sort of remembers shelter like constructions up against trees, but wasn't sure. They trek through the Dryandra Forest which is 45km NW of Narrogin. So she says to me "I've only experienced one thing that's ever been weird", one night (they walk at night as much as the day) while walking along a designated walking trail (about 30mins in the forest) her boyfriend decided to take a small not regularly used trail that was illuminated by the moonlight to their right.
The trail led down into a gully, and about 100m along the trail they stopped after hearing a certain sound. "What did it sound like I asked?", she replied "It sounded like a big kangaroo jumping up and down on the same spot!". Apparently they were going to investigate thinking it was a roo caught somewhere under a log/tree, but she became hesitant and they left. He always carries a giant military torch (like a spotty) with them but she can't remember if they shined it in the area (they don't use it regularly as it wrecks your night vision). After I explained what I thought it could have been, a Yowie stamping as you enter their territory, she hasn't been out at bush-walking at night anymore.
Another friend who has been out on a couple of expeditions with me looking for Yowie's (and a few ale's), was looking to buy some property down south-west of WA. After coming through Pemberton they had to stop at a truck stop as his newly born daughter was in need of a feed. His partner got him to pull over and she began breast feeding. It was around 11pm and he was strolling around the front of the car stretching his legs when heard a loud 'wooooh' noise. He said to me, "It sounded just like the noises you had on your CD's". But after the first noise coming from about half a km away on the opposite side of the road he predicts a second reply call came from his side of the road, deep in the bush. Both sounded a fair way off but were strong calls.
He rang me early the next day so excited that he'd heard a possible Yowie. Up until then he probably thought I was a nutter, like everyone else thinks.
Our last search was in the Caraban area about an 1 hour 30mins from Perth on the 21st April. The area is quite thick in spots and with my previous experience around near there, thought it may yield something else. There are plenty of roo's and sheep running wild around there, and the ticks are in plague proportions.
I pulled about 30 off myself and had over 100 bites, suppose that's what you get for crawling around in the scrub. Came across areas in the small gullies that had been flattened down in thick patches of scrub, but could have been roo's (found no signs of roo poo though). At one spot found this area (image right) where a branch was propped up against a tree and area behind was totally flattened out (was no poo or hair anywhere to say it was roo's).
Suppose branch could have fallen there but it was the only sign we came across in three days there.
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