Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center

The Australian Yowie Research Centre wrote: If it should surprise you that sober Australians are seeing creatures that have always been believed to be confined to the vast, snowy recesses and peaks of the Himalayas, then hold on to your armchair because by the time you've finished reading this chapter you could be convinced, as I am, that similar manlike monsters exist right here in Australia! You will learn that the so-called "Abominable Snowman" has been seen over a wide area of Australia from the earliest times of Aboriginal and then European settlement to the present day.

As I have said, Abominable Snowmen are by no means confined to the Himalayas. Reported sightings of similar man-beasts have been recorded from both mainland and South-East Asia, and also over a wide area of North America. The creatures are known under a variety of names. Throughout the Himalayas they are known to the Sherpa people as "Yeti" ("dweller among the rocks"). In China, the "Chi-Chi or "Chang Mi ("wild man"); in Russia, the "Almastis" or "Chuchuna" ("hairy man of the forest"); and in Canada and the United States, "Sasquatch", ("hairy man of the woods", better known as "Bigfoot"). Other hairy man-apes are said to inhabit the jungles of South-East Asia and New Guinea.

Further south still, in south-eastern Australia, the Aborigines preserve traditions of the "Yowie" (also known as "Doolagahl", meaning "great hairy man). The yowies, like their overseas cousins, are described as often enormous, hairy, manlike or ape-like creatures of tremendous weight and strength. Their physical description, as given by the Aborigines to early European settlers last century, also matches descriptions given by modem-day eyewitnesses, and I believe this will be significant in the eventual scientific classification of these creatures.

According to the Aborigines, the yowies were terrifying to look upon: While most 'respectable' scientists dismiss the surviving 'relict hominid' theory out of hand, there are a number of other researchers worldwide who think otherwise. Of these, eminent American anthropologist Dr drover T. Krantz [Has since passed away. R.I.P.] of Washington State University is best known. From exhaustive studies and comparisons of what he considers to be authentic Bigfoot footprint plaster-casts, Krantz has concluded that the creatures may indeed be living representatives of Gigantopithecus.

Despite widespread scientific opinion that Gigantopithecus would have walked on its knuckles like a gorilla rather than on its feet, Dr Krantz makes a convincing argument, based on the spread of its lower jaw, that Gigantopithecus was actually an erect biped. Using the massive fossil jaws of these monster man-apes as a guide, he says: If you change a gorilla to a vertical posture like a human, and make the neck come straight down, one thing you have to do is spread the back of its lower jaw to make room for the neck. And, as can be shown, the lower jaw of Gigantopithecus spreads much more widely than the jaw of a gorilla. Gigantopithecus was so much like the Sasquatch that I would assume Gigantopithecus is alive today."

During the last great ice age, sea levels were much lower than they are today, and land-bridges joined Australia and the Americas to the Asian mainland. It was over these 'bridges' that the ancestors of the Yowie/Yeti/Bigfoot would have migrated. Our early European settlers took the existence of the yowie/Doolagahl for granted, regarding them as some secretive race that inhabited the still largely unexplored interior of the continent, and the eastern Australian mountain ranges in particular. In fact, sightings of 'hairy men' by Europeans date back to the first years of settlement.

I find these 'historic' yowie reports fascinating, for they lend the mystery some degree of credibility. It is a belief in this credibility that has encouraged me over the past 36 years (as I am writing this chapter in 1993- now in 2009, over 50 years of Research) to undertake countless field expeditions, often into some of the most inhospitable mountain country, in search of evidence of these creatures' existence.

My first meeting with the yowie took place in 1957 when, as a 14-yearold student at Liverpool Boys High School in Sydney's west, I came across in the school library Aboriginal myths and legends books containing numerous tales of these hairy men. I immediately became fascinated with the creatures and began collecting all the myths and legends I could about them. In 1958 when my family moved to Katoomba in the rugged Blue Mountains, not only did I soon find out that yowies were a part of local folklore, but that people had claimed to have seen the creatures from early last century into recent years.

There are vague stories of early settlers and soldiers having seen and shot at hairy hominid creatures in the Springwood district of the lower Blue Mountains as far back as the 1820s. Over the years, similar tales have come from Katoomba and Blackheath as well as the nearby Megalong, Kanimbla and Hartley valleys. Even the Sydney district in its early years of settlement was the scene of numerous 'hairy man' sightings. Beyond the settlement of Sydney Cove in what are now the sprawling, populated suburbs of modern Sydney, vast forests of trees and scrub existed there at that time.

As early as 1795, a group of settlers on a hunting trip was said to have spotted a man-sized hairy beast dashing away from them through the scrub. Aborigines claimed that hairy men inhabit the wild gullies in the Hornsby district north of Sydney, and in about 1822, settlers are said to have made the first sightings of the man-beasts. As the information concerning pioneer-period yowie sightings began to mount, so did my first modern-day reports. My first press interview brought forth a farmer who claimed his father had seen a taller-than-man sized, hairy, ape-like creature near their Oberon farm west of the Blue Mountains many years before.

By the 1870s, coal and shale mining had begun in the Blue Mountains, and miners entered the rugged Jamieson Valley, cutting a railway line from the base of Katoomba Falls several kilometres out to the Ruined Castle rock formation where a settlement was established for the mining of its extensive kerosene shale deposits.

It did not take long for the miners to become aware of the 'hairy man'. During 1875, a miner, Mr J. H. Campbell, was exploring scrubland on the western slope of the Castle, far below the tunnelling operations, when he sighted what he later described as a hairy, two-metre-tall, manlike ape-like animal moving through the scrub about 100 metres ahead of him, and seemingly oblivious to his presence. Mr Campbell picked up a strong piece of tree limb for protection and stalked the hairy creature for half a kilometre before it eluded him.

Once settlers began penetrating further into Australia's vast interior, sightings of the hairy man began to mount. Sightings in the southern alpine region of Victoria-New South Wales date from around the 1850s, and in the northern NSW mountain ranges, such as on the Carrai Range west of Kempsey (to which we shall return), from the 1840s.

My files bulge with stories from every state, such as the following

In 1889 a cattleman, Mr Ben Delgate, with several other bushmen, was mustering stock in the Jindabyne district of the Snowy Mountains late one afternoon in May. As they moved the mob of cattle through timber on the banks of the Snowy River, their cattle dogs began acting strangely, sniffing the air then whimpering and barking at something somewhere off in the dense forest. Then Ben and his mates were startled to see a three-metre tall, hairy manlike creature emerge from the trees, brandishing a large tree limb which it began waving threateningly at the men while emitting loud snarls.

The cattle began running in all directions, scattering in fright. One of the men raised his rifle at the man-beast and fired, hitting him in the shoulder. Screaming, the monster fled off into the timber, eluding the men who were unable to make their horses pursue the creature. The men could hear it screaming in the distance, crashing its way up through mountainside scrub.

During 1895, two government geologists established a camp near Tumut while on a survey for minerals in the Snowy Mountains. Late one night prior to sleeping, the men saw something like a dingo moving around the outskirts of the camp, illuminated by the glow from the campfire. One of the men fired a shotgun at the 'thing', at which it adopted an upright stance upon two legs and scrambled into the bush. It was still emitting blood-curdling screams as it faded into the distance. The men stayed up all night, piling logs on the fire with guns at the ready in fear of the creature's return. The next morning they found tracks and traces of blood near the camp.

This incident has parallels with another which took place a few years before World War 1 in the mountains behind Buggan Buggan. An Aboriginal couple, Big Charlie and his wife, were driving a wagonette through rugged bushland when they were suddenly attacked by what they described as a strong, manlike, hairy beast. Both escaped, but with a profusion of bleeding wounds.

Early last century, European settlers' tales of 'hairy man' sightings covered much of central Victoria, where the local Aborigines had another name for the fearsome creatures-"Doolagarl" (similar pronunciation to the southern NSW tribal name "Doolagahl"). Port Phillip District was the name by which Victoria was known prior to 1851. Early settlers once referred to the 'hairy man' of the Port Phillip District. They were huge beasts, said to roam the countryside beyond old Melbourne. Both settlers and Aborigines kept clear of them.

It was said about this time that people went missing along some of the old bush tracks. Several miners on their way to a gold claim saw a horseman ahead of them suddenly snatched from his mount by a huge, hairy 'man-ape' that dashed from out of tree cover. About this time, Tasmania was having its own problems with the hairy man, for whom the former Tasmanian Aborigines had several different names such as "Makoron Koro ("hairy man") and "Booang Koro" ("hairy giant of the forest, also known as the "Abominable Man").

High mountain plateaus and lakes mostly dominate the interior of Tasmania, the vast forests remaining largely impenetrable. Cradle Valley is one area of early sightings still talked about by locals. It was here in the 1860s that a group of explorers were terrified one night at their campfire by a thunderous roar that came from out of the depths of the forest.

Aborigines with whom they later spoke told them they had heard the cries of the Makoron Koro, a giant manlike beast capable of killing anyone who chanced to cross his path or invade his territory. A whole population of the creatures was supposed to inhabit the region. According to the tribespeople, these hominids wandered the mountains either alone or in pairs, but often in family groups. The males were very powerful, muscular and hairy, whereas the females had less hair than the males and were a little smaller but had long, pendulous breasts. Sightings in the Cradle Valley continue to the present day.

Turning to Australia's western half, there were literally dozens of names for the 'hairy man' among the many Aboriginal tribes, including "Tjangara" (South Australia), Jinka" (Western Australia), and "Pankalanka" (Northern Territory).

Back in 1898, a Mr Jack Petheridge was one of a party of graziers in search of good pasture lands beyond Broome in the 'top end' of Western Australia on the fringe of the wild north-west Kimberley region. Penetrating inland across the Fitzroy River, they entered the Oscar Range country. Jack was 25 years old at the time and a good shot with a rifle, supplying the group with kangaroo meat during the expedition. What follows is from Jack's own diary, still preserved by descendants now living in Perth.

"My companions and I had been out from Broome for two months, and as we were low on food again I went out one day to shoot more game. I approached a stand of trees and dense shrubbery. When it was but 30 yards distant, I heard rustling among the foliage. "Then, to my horror, an enormous ape of the gorilla family emerged into view, fully 14 feet in height. His snarling mouth displayed large teeth and his eyes were deeply set within thick eyebrows. His forehead sloped back, and long thick reddish-brown hair trailed from his head which was sunk into the shoulders, giving him a stooped gait.

I observed his large genitals and his strong muscular body and arms which appeared much longer than a normal man's. His hands and fingers were very large and he gripped a high tree-branch with his left hand as he stood looking menacingly at me. "The man-ape began advancing toward me and it was then that I fired a shot at the brute's chest. He screamed and clutched his chest but kept coming, so I fired again-a fatal shot at his head-and brought him down only feet from me. The man-ape was covered over much of his body in thick reddish-brown hair and had very large feet with an opposable big toe.

I ran back to camp to tell my disbelieving companions but, after they saw the body, the first thought was how many more of these gorillas were thereabouts. But the creature's great height and bulk was much more than any ordinary gorilla to our knowledge and, anyway, what were such animals doing in Australia?" The men left this "gorilla" lying there and abandoned the region to head for home. Jack later returned to the area with a naturalist, but, by then, months had passed and they could find no trace of the animal's bones.

There are many historical accounts preserved across Australia, all of which demonstrate that our pioneers took the existence of the 'hairy men' very seriously. But what of the far older traditions of our Aboriginal people? They had of course known of the 'hairy man' for untold thousands of years before European arrival on this continent. Indeed, they claim the Yowie/Doolagahl, etc., like the other giant races mentioned in the previous chapter, had existed here long before the appearance of the first Aborigines!

The Aborigines Australia-wide recognised two types of giant hairy-man being: the more ape-like yowies who were both herbivorous and carnivorous but who did not make stone tools or fire; and the giant tool-making hominids, of which it appears there were more than one type, as some knew the use of fire. As I have said, the early Aborigines venerated the yowies as very sacred creatures, usually not to be harmed. There were, however, exceptions whenever the hairy men became a nuisance, as in the case of the "Turramulli" giants of Cape York in Queensland's far north.

Hereabouts the Yalanji and other tribes recognised two forms of hairy man-the "Turramulli" and the "lmjim". The Imjim were a much smaller man-beast answering to the general description of the yowie, whereas the Turramulli giants appear to have been much closer to the general appearance of the Gigantopithecus. According to the Yalanji people, although the Imjim were big and strong hairy creatures, they were nowhere near the height and strength of the Turramulli. Yalanji elders say that, while the Imjim were from 2 to 2.3 metres tall, the Turramulli giants were a good three metres in height and very ferocious.

Quinkin Mountain, situated deep in the Cape York interior, was, they said, one lair of the Turramulli monsters, and the Aborigines kept clear of the region as much as possible. The Turramulli giants used to emerge in groups from the mountain to forage for food on the surrounding plain. They were even known to chase Aboriginal hunting parties from their 'kills' and feed upon them.

Eventually, however, the Yalanji people banded together and determined to wipe out the Turramulli monsters. They fell upon the monsters in several battles, spearing them to death. Some were said to have survived, retreating further into the mountain country where to this day, say the Yalanji, they may still live. There are remote areas of the Cape York region that Aborigines will not enter or remain in for too long for fear the Turramulli will capture and eat them!

Aborigines of Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria, which was formerly joined to nearby Arnhem Land during the last ice age, preserve traditions of another Gigantopithecus- type monster similar to Turramulli. This giant was known as "Gurumuka". The Gurumukas were described as a race of up to three-metre-tall, powerfully built, hairy male and female creatures with big teeth. They were omnivorous in their eating habits, so ate flesh. They also ate Aborigines, and were most active at night-and heaven help any Aborigine caught by one of these prowling cannibal giants! Gradually, however, the Groote Eylandt Aborigines summoned up the courage to stand up to the Gurumukas, eventually killing them off.

Aborigines of the Kulin tribe of the Yarra Flats region of Victoria, feared man-ape monsters known as the "Lo-An". They drove the Kulin Aborigines from their hunting grounds thereabouts, to live on the eels and other aquatic life of the area which the females (who were somewhat smaller than the males) cooked in earth ovens. It appears the Aborigines here, as elsewhere, often confuse the tool-making, fire-making giant hominids with the more primitive yowies.

According to legend, the Lo-An eventually followed migrating swans to the Western Port area, then followed the coastline until they reached Wilson's Promontory where they made their home. The former tribes of eastern New South Wales possessed a mass of yowie folklore far beyond the scope of this book to cover, so I shall return to the Blue Mountains west of Sydney to give just one example-that of the Frog Hollow yowie myth, better known as "the Gubri Man and the Hoori Woman", which is described thus.

"He is a giant who has burning red eyes that peer from an oversized head, and great big thick lips surrounding an enormous mouth, and he lives with his female counterpart in a rock shelter in Frog Hollow. His female counterpart, the Hoori Woman, is equally large, an exceptionally ugly creature, and she possesses a fearful voice." This is how old Aborigines described the male and female yowies that, long before the coming of the white man, inhabited a large rock formation that now overlooks the old Catalina racing circuit on the western side of Katoomba township,

Both creatures were avoided but respected by the Aborigines who inhabited the area. The Gubri Man and Hoori Woman were cannibalistic, feeding upon any Aborigine unfortunate enough to be caught by them. Both creatures were said to be covered in long hair. They could be spotted often at their rock shelter, feeding upon roots and berries or animal, and uttering strange sounds to one another. They would emit loud howling sounds at any Aborigine they saw spying on them.

At the time of writing (1993), I have been researching the yowie mystery for 36 years, and at age 49 I still have no intention of quitting the search. Heather, my wife of the past 21 years, has joined me in this quest. With at least 5,000 yowie reports in my files and a growing collection of footprint plaster-casts of the creatures, any normal person would seem justified in saying that we have more than enough to prove the existence of Australia's Bigfoot. But as nothing short of actual physical proof-such as fossil or recent skeletal remains or a living specimen-will ever convince the scientific community of the existence of the 'hairy man', our search must continue.

I feel privileged to be the 'father' of yowie research, but it has not been easy-a lifetime of ridicule from both ignorant laymen and scientists alike, not to mention the often comic approach of the media. Yet, despite the disbelievers, I continue to receive reports from across the country. Not a week goes by without letters and phone calls from people who genuinely believe they have seen one of these creatures, heard of other sightings or else found possible footprints of one of the hominids in some remote part of the country.

As an open-minded field naturalist and historical researcher/archaeologist with a lifetime's interest in all 'unexplained' phenomena, I have always been fascinated by the 'known' as well as the 'unknown' in nature. I realise that lack of evidence does not necessarily mean lack of existence for any rarely seen or 'unknown' animal or hominid species.

I am often asked why I persist in my search, year after year, without finding any actual physical proof of these Australian man-beasts. For me, the answer is threefold:

firstly, I seek to vindicate ancient Aboriginal traditions of the yowie;

secondly, I seek to obtain the necessary physical evidence, such as skeletal remains, to put before scientists to have them accorded the same protective legislation given to any other rare life-form; and

thirdly, even if my searches fail to find this evidence, at least my wife and I are privileged to see magnificent wilderness areas largely unknown to most city-bound Australians.

The historic period 'hairy man' reports lend credibility to Australian relict hominid research. Why? Because, as has been shown, the public and also the press of those times took them seriously generations before the ignorant tongue-in-cheek reporting regrettably practised by today's 'gentlemen and women of the press'. But, even today, reports often emerge which these reporters cannot easily dismiss, and it is to these modern-day accounts that we now turn. Much of the publicity surrounding yowie sightings in modern times has centered upon the eastern Australian region.

But what of the mass of reports hardly ever mentioned in the press from Australia's western half What has been happening in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and South Australia lately? South of the Kimberley Plateau lies the vastness of the Great Sandy Desert, one of the fabled homes of the dreaded Jinkas", also known as the "Jim bra"-monstrous three-to-four-met re-tall, powerfully-built gorilla-like beings which the Aborigines feared. People venturing into lonely parts of the interior have periodically seen these Gigantopithecus-like hairy men or else have found their massive footprints as further evidence of their presence.

'I nearly fainted when I came across these huge ape-like tracks in the soil. I never thought such monsters ever existed outside Aboriginal myths and legends," said one lady, Mrs Joan Mc Kendrick, when she came across several two-foot-six-inch-long footprints while prospecting with her husband Tom near Lake Tobin in the south~east corner of the Great Sandy Desert, one day in 1972. To the north of here lies Jimberingga. This community bears a name which is actually another variant of Jimbra, the other local name for these monsters, and it, too, is an area of 'hairy man' sightings in recent times.

One day in 1977, two young property workers, brothers Vince and Trevor Collins, were driving a truck along a bush track about 10 kilometres north of Jimberingga when they heard a loud crash on their cabin roof, then another on the back of the vehicle. Stopping to check, they realised two large rocks had been hurled at their vehicle from roadside scrub. Looking back along the road, they beheld a horrifying sight. "A massive, upright-walking, black-haired, gorilla-like monster emerged from bushes onto the road, waving a large tree limb menacingly at us and making an unearthly, terrible, loud snarling sound.

"He was only 100 yards away and beginning to stride towards us, all the time brandishing the tree limb at us. We could make out his sex and that he was very hairy, and had a large gorilla-like head-a nightmarish, ugly brute. By now we were frantically climbing back into our truck, and as I increased speed, he had already begun running swiftly in long strides toward us, waving the tree limb and screaming. Our last sight of him was from a distance as we drove off along the road. He stood there for a moment watching our escape, threw the limb aside and strode off into the trees," said Vince in an interview with me in 1979.

Many years before, in 1952, mineral surveyors working in a remote area on the edge of the Gibson Desert in the Brassey Range found over a dozen monstrous footprints, over two feet in length, embedded in drying creek mud about a day old. An Aboriginal guide with the party told the men that a Jinka monster" was nearby and that they should leave the area right away. The men heeded his advice and promptly abandoned their camp!

During 1970 I interviewed an old fossicker from Adelaide who, about 1960, in the company of another mate had experienced a meeting with a Jimbra family that they would be most unlikely to forget. Andy Hoad and his mate Bret Taylor left their wives for a couple of days' prospecting out from Kalgoorlie where they all lived at the time. The men used a tin hut up in the Lake Ballard area to the north. Andy's story follows.

'We had just arrived and unpacked our truck this particular weekend when we noticed a bad, rotting-type smell about the shed. No dead animal anywhere in sight, so we wondered what had caused the stink.' We went off later with our equipment to work a favourite location on a dried-up creek-bank-always good for gemstones there. Anyway, my mate soon got the feeling we were being watched. He kept on looking over his shoulder, and soon even 1 got the same uneasy feeling.

"There was a stand of scrub further along the creek and it was from here we suddenly heard voices-gutteral sounds is a better description. Looking in that direction we could see dark shapes moving in the tree cover. Thinking it was people, Bret called out, 'Who's there, at which a seven-foot, dark brownish-haired, long-breasted female 'ape' emerged, standing in a stooped upright position, to be joined by a younger female of about six feet. Then, to our further horror, a huge nine-foot male appeared. The nearest creature you could compare them with would probably be the gorilla.

"We had no firearms, only our picks and shovels for protection. Regaining our composure, we kept the picks and ran back along the creek. Ahead of us were the sounds of crashing and screeching tin sheeting, and we knew something was happening to our hut. In the distance we could see another hairy gorilla-like monster, about 10 feet in height, pulling our roof and walls apart. The building was not all that sturdy so it was easy for the creature to dismantle most of it.

'We were not being pursued but hid in scrub, waiting for the chance to dash to the truck. The manlike 'ape' soon strode away and we made good our opportunity to escape."Aborigines in Kalgoorlie later told us we should never have been there, for it was the territory of the Jimbra, huge hairy animal-men who have inhabited the land since the Dreamtime. You know, we never did go back there. "

South Australia's Nullarbor Plain is the fabled home of "Tjangara", another name for the "great hairy man", and the Aboriginal people of the South Australian outback firmly believe these three-metre-or-rnore-tall giants still wander the interior. There are certain remote regions where they refuse to go unaccompanied and without firearms for fear of attack, for like other giant hominid monsters of Australia's vast interior these man-beasts (and 'woman-beasts') feed upon any Aborigines they capture.

In 1973 down at Woods Well on the south-eastern South Australian coast, south-west of Tintinara, Mr Kim Rayner and his wife Ellaine were camping in thick scrub. As they sat at their campfire around midnight they were suddenly startled by a high-pitched scream which lasted for 15 minutes, ending in a gutteral sound. At this, the Rayners climbed into their utility and locked the doors. Rabbits they had with them in a cage outside on the ground were very agitated.

Suddenly something was pushing at the rear of their vehicle, rocking it up and down. All they could see through the back window was a huge dark shape. The rocking ceased after a minute or so, and their mystery intruder walked away into the encroaching scrub. The Rayners remained in their vehicle for a long time before emerging to gather up their belongings, including the terrified rabbits, by torchlight and driving away. Within days, other campers in the same area reported finding enormous freshly-made manlike footprints in damp soil. At Tintinara a couple of weeks later, a mini busload of people was startled late one afternoon when a 2.6-metre-tall hairy man-beast strode across a dirt road from out of bushland in front of the vehicle.

Steve Moncreif, a fossicker, was exploring a dry creek-bed in the Oolea Range near Yarle Lakes on the fringe of the Great Victoria Desert one day in August 1972. Two years before, there had been a rash of reported encounters and discoveries of up to 50-cm-length footprints of the so called "Abominable Spinifex Man", better known as "Tjangara", but Steve was oblivious to these as he searched for gemstones in the dry earth. e was also oblivious to something standing above him upon a nearby high bank watching every move he made.

Detecting a bad smell, he looked about him to see, standing upon the bank six metres away, an enormous 3.3-metre-tall hairy male creature, a large stone club in its right hand. Steve froze to the spot for a moment, man and sub-man-giant staring at one another; then, grabbing his small geologist's pick for protection, he rose and slowly backed away as the man-monster stood watching him. "My Land-Rover was parked 100 yards away on a track. I figured if I could get there quickly enough I would be alright," he told a reporter later.

However, the monster, uttering a snarling sound, proceeded to jump down onto the creek-bed and dash toward Steve who by now was bounding away as fast as his legs could carry him. "But the monster was closing in fast. 1 was out of breath. I turned, aimed and hurled the pick at the creature's face. The monster 'manimal' screamed in pain, clutching its face with both hands. I quickly staggered the last yards to my vehicle. I drove out of that place in a panic and I have never been back," said Steve.

In 1989, a four-metre-tall hairy man-giant wielding a huge lump of wood for a club was claimed seen on the lower Baroo Creek near Etadunna, east of Lake Eyre. Two carloads of four-wheel-drive enthusiasts were travelling about 100 metres apart on the road between Maree and Birdsville. At a point where the road crosses over the creek, the vehicles disturbed the monster as it stood on the creek-bank close to the roadside. Both groups saw the creature which strode off along the bank and out of sight into the scrub.

The shocked bush-trekkers held a roadside discussion, compared physical descriptions, agreed it was a male, and the men in the party decided to try to track it with their rifles at the ready; but by the time they returned to the crossing and set off on foot, the man-monster had escaped.

We journey now into the Northern Territory, land of the "Pankalanka", the name by which these horrific, hairy monster hominids are known to Aborigines and whites alike hereabouts. During August 1968, a 2.6-metre-tall giant male hominid, long white hair trailing from his head, surprised a young woman on a camping trip while she was walking her dog near the Katherine River, inland from the town of Katherine in Arnhern Land.

"The monster just appeared from out of bushes in front of me. He grabbed the dog and hurled it against a boulder, killing it. I ran away screaming for my parents at our camp nearby. The man-beast all the time was yelling and snarling and at first began pursuing me, but as I approached the camp and he saw my folks and our vehicle, he stopped and retreated into the scrub. I recall he had large genitals, very hairy muscular arms and large hands with long finger nails," she told me in a 1973 interview.

Brutish, hairy, ape-like monsters are said by many people to inhabit Amhem Land's Kakadu National Park. People who have penetrated this wild country in Land-Rovers have been known to return to civilisation with stories of giant footprint discoveries or claims of sightings of large hairy male or female creatures. The monster hominids are depicted in local Aboriginal cave art as tall, hairy figures beside smaller Aboriginal figures for size comparison.

In 1982 there was one incident where a camping party awoke one moming to find enormous manlike footprints embedded in the mud of a nearby waterhole. Later that day one of the group, Miss Judy Clark, was terrified at the sight of a three-metre-tall, bad-smelling male creature with long whitish hair. Carrying a large jagged stone knife, he stood watching her from nearby bushes. She later related her experience to a Tennant Creek Aboriginal elder who introduced her to a young Aboriginal man, Brian Gumballa.

A few years before, in 1976, Brian had been camping one night on the creek when a man-sized hairy figure stepped out from nearby bushes and grabbed him. 'We fought all over the ground as I tried to get out of his powerful grip. When I did, I grabbed a piece of wood next to the fire and struck the creature over the head. Screaming, the creature retreated into the scrub, leaving behind a strong, rotting smell and a greasy feeling all over me," he said. Elders believe he had fought off a young male Pankalanka.

The often overpowering smell of these man-beasts is a worldwide feature of these relict hominid reports and is not yet fully understood (but then these 'manimals' don't necessarily wash themselves like normal folks!). Hominid researchers don't yet know enough about these creatures, but with every passing year there is mounting evidence for their existence and more is becoming known about their habits.

We now come to the vast, mountainous expanses of eastern Australia, and the mass of reports that have made these wilds synonymous with the 'hairy man' since pioneering days. They are known by many fearsome-sounding nicknames: the "Kosciusko Snowmen", the 'Hairy Giants of Katoomba", and 'Monster Men of the Lamington Plateau". By these names and more they were known to the early settlers-and still are by the modem-day inhabitants of those regions where they have always been most frequently encountered.

We begin our eastern Australian search with the Australian Alps. During July 1975, a group of skiers near Mount Kosciusko saw a large hairy apelike creature, at least 2.6 to 3 metres tall. moving up a snow-covered mountainside. In fact, for the past 100 years or so there have been some very strange happenings recurring over the vast and inhospitable Australian alpine region: tall hairy figures sighted by mountaineers, skiers and isolated farmers; mystery footprints found in the snow; and strange, eerie cries heard at night from the forest depths.

European interest in the mysterious creatures could be said to date from 1860 when a small group of explorers sighted a tall, hairy gorilla-like beast moving through snow on a steep mountainside near Mount Kosciusko. However, it was following press reports of the 1975 skiing incident that many people finally decided to come forward with other stories which they had kept secret for fear of ridicule.

For example, one night in March 1968, a motorist, Mr John Noyce, was driving on the Mount Kosciusko road when what he thought was a large bear, standing upright, appeared on the roadside ahead of him, illuminated by the car headlights. The creature was much taller than a man and was covered in long hair. However, before Mr Noyce could get a good look at the beast, it had walked off into roadside scrub.

During June 1970 at Geehi, north-west of Mount Kosciusko, two mountaineers, Ron Bartlett and Frank Sinclair, were camped on the edge of a stand of mountainside trees. Overnight, light snow had fallen. At daybreak they were preparing to abandon camp when Frank noticed some large, manlike tracks embedded in nearby snow. Both had heard tales of the giant hairy Doolagahls said to inhabit the mountain country but had taken little notice of these 'bushmen's tales' until they saw these tracks.

The men also detected a strange odour and had the distinct feeling that they were not alone. Cautiously they worked their way down through the mountainside scrub. Suddenly, ahead, they spotted a 2.6-metre-tall, dark, hairy manlike figure staring at them. It then vanished into the dense scrub.

In the years following the outburst of sightings reports of the mid-1970s, many more incidents have occurred on and around Mount Kosciusko. In October 1990, Dereck Holmes was camping on the bank of the Snowy River source below Mount Kosciusko. One morning he awoke at first light and peered from his tent. As he did so, he caught sight of a 1.6-metre-tall, hairy female creature standing nearby amid granite boulders. As he emerged, bewildered at the sight, she bolted away, disappearing over a granite outcrop. It was hereabouts back in 1948 that a party of campers had sighted a tall hairy figure, about 2.3 metres tall, moving up a mountainside through snow at a distance of about 100 metres.

In January 1991 my wife Heather and I made an extensive visit to the Snowy Mountains, during which we climbed Mount Kosciusko to investigate the locations of many of the reports I have received from this region over the years. It is a barren, desolate, windswept and generally inhospitable place for humans to be trapped in. How, then, are our Australian man-beasts able to survive among the rocks of this rugged massif? It may seem unlikely, but they do.

The Snowy Mountains region has produced a great many hairy man-beast encounters. Observations reported to me by property owners of the Providence Portal area near Cabramurra have confirmed my own research findings which show that many of these reports occur about June, following the first winter snowfall, when the animal life of the high country migrates into the lower regions to escape the excessively cold conditions of the mountaintops. It is at this time that sightings of man-beasts or discoveries of their footprints, often on snow-covered ground, are most prevalent.

In January 1990, two young women, Susan Townsend and another girl, and their boyfriends were camped on the shore of Lake Jindabyne. Late one afternoon while the others went wood-collecting in the surrounding forest, Susan was busy getting the campfire started. Detecting a powerful odour and hearing twigs snapping underfoot, she turned and screamed with fear as a hairy 2.3-metre-tall, muscular, giant male creature, almost apelike in appearance, emerged from trees a mere 10 metres away. He approached the girl, but hearing the others returning he bolted in big strides into the forest.

The boys, hearing Susan's frantic account of what she had just seen, gave chase up mountainside scrub, thinking the intruder was some weird hermit. Loud snarls and large rocks hurled at them convinced the boys to end their pursuit. Locals to whom they later told their story said they probably saw one of the Doolagahl that old Aborigines claim still live up in the mountains!

Leaving the Snowy Mountains region for the far south coastal and inland districts, we find another area rich in 'hairy man' folklore. About 1909, a Mr Charles saw a two-metre-tall hairy man in bushland on his remote farm near the base of Mammoth Mountain outside Bega. The man-beast was observing him as he went about his work cutting timber. When he stopped to observe the hairy visitor it turned and walked off back into the scrub.

Much earlier, about 1885 at nearby Tathra, Tom Michael, a youth about 15 years of age, was working on a dairy farm. One day, while milking a cow in a paddock on the edge of thick timber, he became aware that he was not alone. Watching him inquisitively from nearby bushes, he saw a hairy ape-like female creature about 1.6 metres in height. Tom offered her some milk in a pail in an effort to attract her closer, but she turned around and ran away into the scrub.

Again, the next day, Tom saw the hairy female resting on the ground near where he'd seen her the day before, but this time he chose not to go near her and, instead, watched her until she returned to the bush. He never saw her again. According to Aborigines of the Bega district, "Doolegards" (yet another variant of the name) inhabit the Brown Mountain region. Ancient Aboriginal tradition of that area says these Doolegards were big hairy manbeast monsters who ate Aborigines in the long-ago Dreamtime.

The "Bega Monster' continues to be seen in the Bega-Brown Mountain area, and giant-sized footprints are still found in the forest country thereabouts. Further north up the coast and inland from Narooma, thence westward along the Tuross River, lies the Wadbilliga National Park situated in typical south-coast forestland. It was here in this wild country late one afternoon in October 1979 that a ranger, "Steve" (name withheld on request), was parked on a remote four-wheel-drive road at a seldom-used picnic area while he checked the surrounding forest for rubbish discarded by thoughtless people.

The time was about 4 pm, and I was thinking it was getting late and I had better leave as it was a long drive through the park back to civilisation. I was working my way back toward the Land-Rover, some 300 yards away, among the gums in the quiet forest-not a bird to be heard-when I heard some distant sounds of snapping foliage and strange, gutteral sounds. 'Someone coming,'I thought." Steve got the shock of his life and for a moment could not decide whether to make a dash through the trees for the Land-Rover or hide where he was.

"At that moment, looking in the direction of the sounds across a ferny clearing, I spotted three hairy shapes, one taller than a normal human, emerging onto the clearing about 200 feet away. In an instant I thought only one word, 'yowies'-tales of which I had heard before but never believed (but I do now!). They had not seen me, and for obvious reasons by now I was down behind some foliage, 'eating dirt'. There ahead of me were three hairy, naked ape-like forms-I had glanced a quick look through the bushes-a male of about nine feet tall, a female of six feet and a five-foot juvenile male.

I froze in disbelief, horrified that they might see me close by. The big male was very thickset, the female slender. I saw little else for I was too preoccupied in lying as close to the ground as I could to avoid being seen and perhaps attacked and killed by these 'human apes'. They wandered across the clearing away from where I lay. The last I saw of them were their backs as they continued on into the forest in the distance." For a minute or two, Steve remained where he was, just to make sure they were well and truly out of sight, then...I got to my feet and ran for the vehicle some distance away. ('Surely they must have noticed it,'I thought.) Anyway, I damn well got out of that forest and out of the park as fast as I could.

"Some weeks later I heard that two young blokes out camping thereabouts reported finding big footprints in soil on the road near where I had my experience, but heavy rain overnight washed them away before anyone could return with the boys to inspect them." "Steve" reported his story to me after publication of an article about my research into the 'hairy man of the south coast' in the local press. It is by no means the only story of its kind to come from those vast wilds.

Far south coastal NSW Aboriginal people are often too tight-lipped to speak of the many mysterious and sometimes terrifying encounters that their people have had with Doolagahl's, but here is one account that involved a young Aboriginal mother, "Julie", in the Wallaga Lake area in 1986. Her story goes that one day she left her four-year-old boy playing alone on a creek-bank facing the backyard of the family property while she hung out washing on the clothes hoist. The property is flanked on two sides by thick scrub, with scrub covering the opposite bank of the creek.

As she was surrounded by sheets on the hoist, her view of the boy was momentarily blocked. It was at this moment that she heard the little boy speaking to a "man". When she pushed aside the sheets she was horrified. Standing looking down at the little boy from a mere six feet (two metres) away, was an ugly, gorilla-like, black-haired male creature a good 2.3 metres in height, with long arms and big hands dangling at its sides. The woman later described the hominid as standing in a stooped position and having an ape-like head with the by-now-familiar thick eyebrow ridges, receding forehead and pointed skull-dome.

"When I first saw the man-beast I knew right away it was a Doolagahl. We have been taught from childhood about these monsters that live up in the mountains. I feared the Doolagahl was about to snatch up my little boy and run off with him," she told a neighbour later. However, quickly regaining her presence of mind, she picked up a shovel laying nearby and charged screaming at the creature, snatching up her child and running for the house, dropping the shovel in the process. As she reached the back door she looked back to see the hairy monster running into the creek, splashing through the almost waist-deep water to clamber up and over the opposite bank and into the thick scrub.

Several Aboriginal men and the woman's husband later searched the area, but apart from the indistinct squashed footprints embedded in the creek mud they found no other trace of the hairy monster.

Further north and inland from Batemans Bay lies the town of Braidwood. It was here that the 'hairy man' made numerous appearances throughout the 1970s and early 1980s in a rash of sightings that recalled many old pioneers' tales among the locals. In one incident, Mrs Val Hanson, together with friends, was camped at a lonely spot on the Shoalhaven River outside Braidwood one day in 1980. In the course of exploring the river they came upon a number of manlike footprints, measuring 46 cm long by 25.5 centimetres wide across the toes, embedded in the river-bank.

The discovery made everyone feel a little uneasy, and later that night as they sat around their campfire they had the distinct feeling that they were being watched, although they never saw the maker of the giant footprints and it did not give any further indications of its presence thereafter. Even so, the group was eager to leave the area when daylight came.

North from Braidwood lies Nerriga, home of the "Nerriga Giant. Often described as a "gorilla-like" beast both by whites and Aborigines (who also call it the Doolagahl), it has been claimed seen in the nearby Budawang Range. A farmer claimed to see a hairy male creature eating apples from a tree on his orchard near Nerriga in 1970. The man was too scared to approach the three-metre-tall monster and watched it feeding from the safety of his farmhouse until the man-beast walked away into scrub.

We turn now to the vast expanses of the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, where most of the 'classic' historical sightings reports of yowies originated 'in the early years following European settlement in this district. The early settlers learnt of many mysterious creatures from the Aborigines, but none created as much fear among the natives as the yowie which, they informed the settlers, were often enormous, fearsome manlike beasts that walked upon two legs with a stooped, shambling gait.

As described by tribespeople elsewhere across the country, these monsters were covered from head to foot in long hair. They had no neck, the head being sunk into the shoulders. Aborigines and lonely settlers feared the cry of the yowie, which they said would often come from the forest depths at night-a loud wailing, moaning sound, or sometimes a terrifying screeching, screaming sound, and even loud grunting. The Aborigines informed many settlers of the yowie's diet which, as elsewhere, consisted of vegetable matter such as certain plants, roots, berries, leaves and barks. Animals were eaten on occasion, as were any Aborigines unfortunate enough to be caught by one of these monsters.

The Blue Mountains continues to be a hotbed of yowie man-beast activity-a vast region of hundreds of square miles still containing inaccessible forest regions seldom if ever visited by Europeans. The "'Hairy Giants of Katoomba" are also known as the "Killer Man-Apes of the Blue Mountains" to many locals-and with good reason, as you will read soon.

About January 1961, two young women, Jacki" and "Helen", were frightened by a hairy male hominid creature which appeared from out of thick scrub near the top of Minna Ha Ha Falls in the north Katoomba bushland. The man-beast, they later told police, stood a good seven feet (2.3 metres) tall, had a sloping forehead and thick eyebrow ridges, was very muscular and had long arms with big hands. Screaming, the girls ran off up the track in the direction of the carpark. People to whom they told their story at the park returned to search the area but found no tracks of the creature due to the rocky terrain, although both women agreed the man-beast's feet were "very large".

In May 1974, a pony was found dead in thick bushland near the falls. Its neck had been broken, the head almost tom off, and portions of its back had been removed and eaten. Nearby were the ominous footprints of what must have been an enormous ape-like creature. News of the gruesome find revived memories of a similar occurrence some months before on a Mount Victoria farm where a sheep had been killed in much the same manner. Nearby, large ape-like footprints had been found.

Mount Victoria residents at the time recalled that, during the 1890s, early settlers believed, on the basis of sightings, that a 'family' of yowies lived in the bush on the Victoria Falls road three miles east of the township above the Grose Valley. It is said that in about 1910, two men were bushwalking in the Victoria Falls area when a three-metre-tall, hairy gorilla-like male creature charged at them from out of the dense scrub. He had a large rock in his hand which he hurled at the men, hitting one of them and killing him instantly. His companion somehow managed to run from the monster.

The next day, a party of men with guns and dogs returned to the scene with the survivor, but apart from some blood on the ground his companion's body was nowhere to be found. It was assumed his body had been carried off by the man-beast.

I receive many phone calls from people all over Australia who have something to report, and at all hours.

One October night in 1988 I was woken from my sleep by the phone ringing. Half awake, I picked up the receiver to hear the frantic voice of a woman. I glanced at my watch: the time was 1 am. In an at-first garbled manner she was trying to explain as best she could-while others screamed in the background-that a huge, dark, hairy manlike monster was standing in the backyard of her house which backed onto dense scrub at the end of a well-populated street on the edge of east Blaxland.

Her husband then came to the phone, repeating much of what she had just said. Finally the story became clearer. It appeared that they had just moved into their new home and had invited a dozen friends to a housewarming party. As the others sat about the lounge room talking, two of the guests, a man and woman, had gone out onto a balcony overlooking the backyard and the scrub beyond.

As they looked toward the scrub, they spotted a tall, indistinct, dark figure standing on the edge of the bush in the dim glow of the house lights. As they watched inquisitively, the figure stepped forward into full view.

The couple dashed into the lounge room shouting about what was standing outside. At this, everyone came out to see what the commotion was, only to look down with horror upon a snarling 2.6-metre- tall, naked male creature, very hairy and more ape-looking than human. The women ran inside screaming.

The man-monster proceeded to hurl one rock after another from a nearby garden at the men still standing on the balcony above, before they, too, retreated inside. By now, the woman was phoning the police (who failed to take the matter seriously). Believing the monster to be a yowie, she phoned me as well. Meanwhile, the man-ape walked away into the bush, leaving a bad odour about the yard. It left no footprints due to the hard rocky ground thereabouts.

Investigating the scene later, I found the scrub led into a deep gully dropping down into the eastern escarpment of the Blue Mountains which overlooks the Nepean River with Winmalee to the north-scene of many claimed yowie encounters over the years.

On Saturday 7th June 1979, Mr John Evbic and a mate, "Tony", were exploring the dense scrub on the Jamieson Valley side of the Ruined Castle rock formation. Around midday, as they rested on a rise overlooking a paperbark forest some 60 metres below them, they observed a humanlike shape moving on two legs among the trees.

As it came into full view, the men realised it to be no ordinary human being but something more ape than man, and a good six feet tall. It was covered in long brownish hair.

"The strange beast moved to a paperbark trunk and began tearing away large slabs of bark, appearing to pick off and eat beetles it found burrowing underneath, oblivious all the time to our presence," said Tony.

The mysterious man-beast then began moving off further into the scrub, continuing its foraging. When it was lost from sight, the men did not follow it.

The nearby Megalong Valley covers a considerable territory, stretching from its junction with the Wild Dog Mountains and Cedar Valley to the south, northward to the Kanimbla Valley which ends at the base of the ridge down which Mount Victoria Pass descends. Apart from the farms that dot the area, it is wild country surrounded by dense bushland, particularly toward the southern end of the valley where deep and often impassable gullies and canyons defy all but the hardiest bushwalkers.

The first Europeans to settle this wilderness accepted the tales of Aborigines they had befriended, of hairy manlike monsters, half-man, half something else they could not understand, that roamed the forests. Settlers were warned to stay indoors at night or else these wandering giants might capture them, carry them off into the forests and devour them. These monsters were the yowies-"great hairy men".

In fact, early farmers of the valley often blamed the Aborigines for stealing their vegetables, but the local tribespeople claimed the yowies were responsible, pointing to the distinctive, often larger-than-human footprints left about the vegetable plots by the creatures. These, they pointed out, differed from human footprints in that they displayed an opposable big toe.

The yowies continue to make their presence known in the Megalong and adjoining valleys. One December day in 1978, Mr Steve Delainy was bushwalking in Megalong Valley when, as he worked his way through the dense undergrowth of a forest in the vicinity of "Packsaddlers", he spotted a six-foot-tall, hairy ape-like creature moving among nearby bushes. It was enough for young Steve to turn around and return the way he had come, but at a much faster pace.

During 1976, a camping group of two dozen men and women established camp in the Wild Dog Mountains south-west of Narrow Neck behind "Packsaddlers". Nothing happened during the night, but in the early hours of the morning something strange visited the camp. One of the girls awoke to see "a 2.7-metre-tall, hairy ape-like male creature" examining the camp cooking equipment and other goods. She screamed and the commotion aroused the group. The monster threw down what it was holding and dashed off into the scrub.

Beyond the Wild Dog Mountains lie the Jenolan Ranges and, rising behind, high above them, the vast range of the Kanangra Boyd National Park. It is yet another region steeped in ancient Aboriginal folklore as the home of the "great hairy men". It was about 2.7 metres tall, muscular and hairy, and walked on two legs into the dense scrub without looking back at us." That was how two bushwalkers described a mystery intruder in their camp at dawn one morning in 1982 near Boyd River Crossing, high up in the rugged, forested gorges and mountains that form the Kanangra Boyd National Park.

The early Aborigines hereabouts were not the only ones who took the yowies seriously: the early white settlers living on the fringes certainly did, judging by the many tales that have come out of the region from last century. When questioned by early settlers about the creatures, the Aborigines often insisted that the yowies were terrifying to look upon yet were harmless to man unless provoked or their young endangered, or if anyone decided to stay too long in any location that the creatures had already chosen as 'their' territory.

I have led numerous field expeditions into this vast wilderness and am convinced these 'manimals' still roam these mountains. The following are but some of the many recent stories concerning encounters with the Kanangra man-apes. One night in May 1980 a scout group was driving in a minibus from Jenolan Caves to Kanangra Walls when the weather turned bad. As the bus drove through heavy rain along the Kanangra dirt road, the scoutmaster who was driving was astonished by what he saw on the road.

There ahead of him in the rain, illuminated by the headlights and moving across the road, was a hairy, rain-drenched gorilla-like beast, a full 2.7 metres in height. The man-ape stood in the road as the scoutmaster applied the brakes. But the monster quickly moved off with a stooped and shambling gait into the undergrowth in the darkness. The scouts were alerted in time to get a quick look at the retreating manbeast.

Publicity about their encounter brought forth the tale of another rover scout troupe who, several years before, believed they had found a "yowie lair". They were investigating rock overhangs for signs of animal life in the Jenolan Range not far from the more famous Jenolan Caves when, in a deep gully near the base of the steep Kanangra Boyd mountains and above a creek, they found a bed of soft ferns placed in a rock shelter. Nearby, deeply embedded in creek mud, they found a number of unusually large ape-like footprints.

According to Aborigines, the yowies either wandered about the ranges in ones and twos or in small family groups, sometimes using the cave entrances and rock overhangs in the Jenolan Caves area as lairs long before the coming of the white man or the Aborigines. It is a fact that, while early settlers accepted tales of the yowies at face value, many modem campers tend to take such traditions with a grain of salt-except, of course, those who have experienced 'close encounters' with the 'hairy man'.

For example, about January 1989, two young women and their male companions were camped near Kanangra Creek. While searching the valley floor below the Walls, they came upon a number of larger-than-man-sized footprints in sand. Laughing the tracks off as the work of some joker, they later returned to their camp to find it ransacked, and the same large tracks visible in surrounding soil.

With night coming on they remained at the site, still thinking the tracks and the vandalised camp to have been the work of a joker. However, they were all soon made to feel uneasy. Something seemed to be moving about in the dense scrub close to their camp. Then the unseen intruder began emitting a series of horrifying screams and howls. The terrified group stayed up all night, large tree branches at the ready to protect themselves.

In March 1978, another group-Ted Graham, Peter Collins, Jean Bailey and Betty Nile-were camped below Kanangra Walls while exploring the valley. Walking along a track about 4 pm they saw, 133 metres ahead of them, a long-armed manlike creature, 2.4 metres in height. "It seemed to walk with a stooped gait, its arms moving about as it did so. It stopped, turned and looked in our direction, then moved off," Ted said.

The group spent an uneasy night huddled around their campfire. The next morning they cautiously returned to the spot where they had seen the mystery creature. There on the track and in nearby forest soil they found footprints measuring 50 cm in length by 20 cm width. Their outline displayed the familiar opposable big toe. As already mentioned, Aborigines say the yowies are territorial creatures. While inhabiting an area of forest for food, they will frighten off all other creatures, even others of their own kind from other groups, keeping that area for their own nourishment until they move on in their never-ending migratory wanderings across the ranges.

Lacking physical proof, I am open-minded on the yowie enigma. It is, after all, too ancient a tradition to be light heartedly dismissed. "If the yowie exists, why no bones?" ask the sceptics. The answer is simple. Mother Nature keeps a clean house. No sooner does an animal die than its tissue is quickly eaten up in the wild by other animals and by decomposition and acidic chemicals in the forest soil. Bones become scattered, softened by moisture and cracked by heat so that, soon, nothing remains.

Everyone has seen koalas in zoos, but how many have ever found one dead in the wild? The Australian bush is so vast that it is a case of being in the right place at the right time to find a recently deceased animal or its skeleton. The rarer the species or the more secretive it is, the less chance of finding remains. So, finding physical evidence of the yowie or any other 'unknown' species is very difficult, considering the terrain in which they live. On the other hand, fossil remains of a yowie could yet turn up to settle the issue finally.

If ever there was another mountainous forest-covered region to rival the Blue Mountains for yowie reports, it has to be the equally vast Carrai Range west of Kempsey on the NSW mid-north coast. How the early pioneers were able to penetrate this 'green hell' is beyond me, yet these hardy settlers had done exactly that. As early as 1842 they had reached the Carrai Plateau to establish farms, now long-vanished with the advancing jungle.

It was not long before the settlers began finding strange footprints around the creeks where they took their cattle to drink. That same year, children of the settlers were frightened one day by what they described as a tall, hairy manlike beast who came toward them from out of nearby scrub as they sat playing in a clearing, forcing them to flee for their lives. A search party was organised soon afterwards.

Some days later, the strange beast was seen again near cattle and this time was pursued. However, it eluded its pursuers among the rocks and dense jungle. In 1848, settlers saw at least two of the mysterious hairy creatures in separate instances. On the second occasion, cattlemen pursued the beast up a mountainside where they appeared to have it trapped. Before anyone could shoot it, the mystery creature had climbed down a cliffside and disappeared once again into the forest below.

To this day, farmers around Kempsey, especially in the Carrai foothills, are frequently in the habit of carrying rifles with them whenever they check their stock. They remember only too well the incidents thereabouts over the years when yowies have strayed from their rainforest mountain habitat to enter farming properties. The story is still recalled of when, in 1965, a husband and wife left their remote farm near the Carrai foothills to drive to Kempsey for shopping. Their 15-year-old daughter was left alone to do housework in their absence.

She had tidied up about the house and was in the backyard feeding chickens when the family dog, chained up near the house, began to bark furiously, then cringe and crawl inside its kennel. Suddenly feeling that something was behind her, the girl turned, dropping the bag of chicken-feed she was holding, and screamed in terror. There, standing several feet from her and towering over her frail five-foot height was an enormous, hairy manlike beast, a good eight feet tall. It showed a ferocious look in its eyes which she later recalled were set deep inside big eyebrows. Large teeth showed from its snarling mouth.

The beast moved toward her, but the girl, although terrified, regained her senses enough to turn and rush up the back-door steps into the house, slamming and bolting the door as she did so. For some minutes, she later recalled, the beast seemed to pace around the house emitting a loud grunting noise, then all went silent. She was beside herself with terror by the time her parents returned a couple of hours later, and although she could describe exactly what she had seen to her parents and later to police, nobody in authority took any action. No search was organised to attempt to track the mysterious intruder due to the vastness of the nearby forest.

The Carrai is a mysterious, eerie, foreboding place in which few people dare to camp overnight. Weird cries from the forest depths, and the sounds of twigs snapping underfoot as mysterious upright-walking creatures move about in the forest, have all too often terrified campers who have sometimes caught a glimpse of some huge hominid form watching them from the trees, illuminated in the campfire glow.

Since 1977, my wife Heather I have mounted numerous field expeditions to the Carrai. On one expedition in June 1980, during a howling gale we followed a trail of indistinct hominid footprints, perhaps only an hour old, through rainforest soil, moss and leaf mould near Daisy Plains at the top of the range. It was impossible either to have photographed or cast these tracks, but even in these adverse weather conditions we could detect a faint pungent odour about them. Once again the 'hairy man' had eluded us, for the lashing of the dense foliage and icy wind forced us to abandon our search. [Expedition Section Click Here]

Further down the coast from Kempsey lies Taree, and inland, the wild mountainous country of the Barrington and Woko National Parks. In April 1993 a farmer found a number of giant-sized, man/ape-like footprints on his Manning River-bank property at Wingham, inland from Taree. Measuring 40 cm long by 17 cm wide, they were spaced about 1.5 metres apart. The man-beast who made them would easily have stood 2.6 m tall.

In February 1992 at Coopemook to the north of Taree, campers reported seeing a 1.6-metre-tall hairy female creature; while earlier, in May 1990, bushwalkers claimed to have seen a two-metre-tall, hairy male yowie in dense scrub outside nearby Lansdowne. I am interested in the Wingham footprints for they match others found in March 1990 in the Numinbah Valley, inland from the Queensland Gold Coast and close to the New South Wales border. These in turn match others found in the Kanangra Boyd National Park and also others found some years ago in the Cooma district of the Snowy Mountains.

The Taree area has been the scene of yowie sightings and footprint discoveries since pioneering days last century. For example, in 1842, a Wingham area settler was rounding up cows on his farm one day when a "naked, nine-foot-tall, manlike hairy beast approached him from out of bushland. In 1850, a family was said to have been surprised by a seven-foot-tall female creature with long pendulous breasts and a "monkey-like face" as they travelled along a bush track in a cart near Harrington.

Similar stories were rife hereabouts during the First World War period and into the 1920s, just as they were around Kempsey and other coastal towns further north, and they continue today. Since European settlers first entered the rugged Numinbah Valley and also the nearby Tweed Valley and NSW side of the wild Border Ranges just to the south, there have been tales of the fearsome "Monster Men of the Lamington Plateau"-huge, hairy ape-like, manlike beasts upwards of 2.6 to 3 metres in height. The females were described as having long, pendulous breasts and being less hairy than the males.

It was the Aborigines who first cautioned the early settlers of these valleys, out of which rise the imposing Lamington cliffs with their jungle-covered tops. The deep, rugged rainforested wilds below still challenge any would-be explorers.

My wife Heather and I have made several expeditions to the Lamington region, following numerous letters and phone calls from people who have had some often terrifying experiences in this jungle wilderness. A farmer, "Doug", had experienced some very eerie happenings on his Numinbah Valley property. He had found giant footprints and heard weird cries at night. In 1969 he was working in a field one day when he saw, some distance away, a three-metre-tall, hairy manbeast walking across the field carrying a dead calf. Grabbing his .303 rifle, he fired at the monster as it effortlessly cleared a wooden paling fence in a single stride and escaped into rainforest.

In another incident a few years earlier in the Tweed Valley, a stockman, Richard Adams, was mustering a mob of cattle on horseback when the cattle and his horse suddenly took fright. It was at this moment that, barely 16 metres ahead of him, an enormous, muscular, hairy manlike creature appeared menacingly, brandishing a large tree limb. The snarling beast, whose face Richard later described as being somewhere between human and ape, stood its ground as the terrified stockman turned his mount to gallop off down the slope.

And in the same region, around 1935, residents of an isolated farm were startled by the frantic bellowing of their house cow one dark night. Their cattle dog, immediately let out of the house, attacked something but suddenly let out an agonising yelp-then all was quiet. The farmer and one of his farmhands went out armed with lanterns and guns. They found the corner fences down, the cow dead with a broken neck, its head almost tom off, and the dog crushed against a tree where it had been thrown. In the distance they could hear something crashing through the bush up the mountainside.

A search next day failed to explain what had killed the animals. However, many neighbouring farmers believed it was the work of the "Monster Men of the Lamington Plateau". Aborigines refuse to enter these valleys for fear of the horrible man-beasts they believe still lurk there. Over the years, people have disappeared without trace in these wilds. Eerie cries are often heard at night, terrifying campers.

Early in 1990 Heather and I searched an area in the Numinbah Valley below Binna Burra where, during November 1989, three campers-Terry and Max Feitz and Barry Bossley-found several large footprints, measuring 45 cm long by 18 cm wide, embedded 2 cm deep in mud on a creek bank. Similarly, at Beechmont, two other campers, Ken White and Jerry Moore, claim they saw a two-and-a-half-metre tall, hairy man-beast squatting to drink at a creek-edge in dense scrub.

Our investigation then switched to Durum Creek. One night in August 1978, Len Rowe and his wife Glenda were camped by this creek. when they were woken by a loud splashing sound 20 metres away down the creek. They caught sight of an enormous dark shape disappearing into the jungle, accompanied by sounds of crashing foliage. They then detected a foul stench about the area. This strong stench turns up repeatedly in sightings reports, and, as I have already pointed out, appears to be a worldwide occurrence in regard to the yeti, Bigfoot, and so on.

In 1965, a group of mountain-climbers were moving through a rainforest at the base of a Lamington cliff-face in Numinbah Valley when they spotted what they later claimed was a "three-metre-tall, hairy ape-like giant clambering over boulders, leaving behind an overpowering, rotting, animal-like stench. In 1988 in the same region, two campers, John Chambers and Russell Bradden, saw a two-metre-tall hairy female creature as she grubbed for roots on all fours in the forest soil. Disturbed by the men, she arose and escaped into the jungle. The men described her as having a receding forehead, long arms and long pendulous breasts.

Shortly after our departure for home in March 1990, a businessman/fossicker, Craig Turner, stopped by a creek in the Numinbah Valley. Leaving his car to walk along the bank amid surrounding rainforest, he found several large footprints embedded up to four centimetres deep in mud. Spaced one-and-a-half metres apart, the footprints measured 40 cm in length by 17 cm width across the toes. After obtaining plaster from a nearby town, he made casts of left and right feet from the best tracks and later gave us copies. The significance of these footprints has already been discussed.

From a study of their casts I am impressed by Australian man-beast footprints found from widely-scattered, remote mountainous locations, often hundreds of kilometres apart and which display identical physical features. The tracks are often found by some bushwalker who has chanced to go off the beaten track into areas never frequented by most people. A hoaxer would be wasting his time planting fake tracks in such areas where nobody is going to find them. Some of these tracks have been found in virtually inaccessible forest regions by sheer chance and, in my view, must therefore be accepted as authentic yowie footprints.

The rugged eastern mountain ranges of Queensland, extending from the Lamington Plateau and McPherson Ranges of the south-eastern border country all the way up to Cape York, still contain many vast regions of inaccessible forest country, seldom if ever visited by man. It is from these high, imposing, rainforest-covered peaks and deep valleys-the fringes of which only hardy timber-cutters and other bushmen dare to penetrate-that eerie stories of mysterious hairy manlike giants have been emerging since the early years of European settlement of this state last century.

Although traditions of yowie sightings in Queensland are statewide, we shall now confine ourselves to those stories from the northern regions of the state. Old-timers of the Tully district early this century used to warn travellers not to enter the Cardwell Range, inland from the town, because of the "great hairy men" that roamed the mountain country thereabouts.

Further south, and north of Townsville on the coast, lies the town of Innisfail, many of whose inhabitants for the past 100 years or so have believed in the "Milla Milla Monster"-giant hairy hominids that Aborigines and early settlers alike believed inhabited the rainforests and mountains of the region. The 'hairy men' of the Innisfail district have been known collectively as the Milla Milla Monster since the many reports of their activities that were rife last century.

During January 1990, two campers found huge footprints of one of these monstrous man-beasts near Milla Milla, for a time reviving many of the old stories. Earlier, in July 1973, Innisfail residents were alarmed when Bill Towns, a bushwalker, and "Mark, a mate, sighted a group of primitive-looking hominids comprising a small male, a larger seven-foot male as well as a small female and a larger, seven-foot female, moving through a rainforest late one afternoon. This is what happened in Bill's own words.

'We were hiking through forest on the edge of a sugar-cane field above an embankment next to a creek. Mark suddenly stopped me. 'Quick, ahead of you,' he said. "There was something moving in the bushes near us next to the track. Then, barely a few feet away, a large hairy male creature emerged onto the track, pushing aside the foliage on either side of it as it did so.

'We were terrified and stood fixed to the spot as the creature, a seven-foot male with large genitals visible, looked at us then slid down the embankment and into the creek. As it stood in the creek it let out a loud howling sound towards the forest behind us. "As he did so, a smaller male appeared of about five-foot (1.2 m) height, and then a female of about seven feet (2.3 m), and a smaller five-foot female, all of whom assembled on the opposite bank of the creek, looked up at us, then ran off up the bank and into forest cover. The adult and smaller males then re-appeared and began screeching at us.

My now we were looking about us for some large pieces of wood with which to defend ourselves. The big muscular male was by now screeching all the more and shaking a tree with rage. He then dashed back along the creek towards us, and we ran off in terror. However, he may have only wanted to frighten us off, as he did not climb the embankment."

Freshly-made footprints of immense size were claimed found in forest country on the edge of Tully township on numerous occassions throughout the 60's and 70's. But, then, hairy man-beasts are nothing new to the local residents. Back in 1876 a two-legged, five-foot tall manlike creature approached a survey party outside Tully and roared at them. The incident was the subject of an official report.

The Cardwell Range, rising high above the coastal flats inland beyond the Tully River, begins inland from Cardwell township and extends northward up to Tully Falls National Park. A wild, rainforest-covered mountainous area, it is, say the Aborigines, the home of the "Cardwell Giant.

Back in 1923, a large work gang was laying tracks on the railway line through to Cardwell. On a number of occasions they would emerge from their tents of a morning to find that during the night 'someone' had disturbed camp cooking utensils, upset tables and work gear, and left huge manlike footprints about the area.

Word soon spread of the Cardwell Giant, which Aborigines of the district said was only one of the many hairy manlike beings that inhabited the surrounding forests. Workmen soon took to carrying guns while working on isolated sections of track.

One weekend the men left their camp to have a break in town some distance away. When they returned on the Monday morning they were dismayed to find their tents all torn down and equipment scattered and smashed. Huge footprints in the surrounding soil told them that the Cardwell Giant did not appreciate their presence in 'his' domain!

The Atherton Tableland, rising high above Cairns, is the scene of frequent 'hairy man' reports. During December 1969, several timber-cutters claimed they saw a two-metre-tall, hairy male "man-ape" watching them among trees as they worked near the town of Atherton.

Earlier that same year, another logging group operating in the Kuranda district reported seeing three strange hominid creatures-an apparent male and female each of two metres in height, and a juvenile of about 1.3 metres-foraging in a gully below them.

Twenty years later, in April 1989, another family group of these hairy 'manimals' shocked a group of loggers by wandering from out of the forest and onto the edge of their camp in broad daylight. Terrified, the men grabbed for wooden stakes and, shouting at the creatures, managed to drive them back into the jungle. The loggers described the humanoid creatures as a 23-metre-tall male, a 1. 3-m juvenile male, and a 2-metre-tall female.

And so the stories of Australia~s Bigfoot creatures continue and show not the slightest indication of ever diminishing. And, I believe, these mysterious, seemingly fearsome yet totally fascinating hairy primitives will continue to survive, hidden in the remote and still largely inaccessible recesses of our vast mountain ranges.

It never ceases to amaze me just how much interest my lifelong research has created. Perhaps the main reason why. millions of people worldwide find the yowie/yeti/Bigfoot mystery so fascinating is that in modem times it is one of the last great unsolved mysteries-in the tradition of the Loch Ness Monster, the giant monitor lizards of Australia and the 'neodinosaurs' of the Congo.

People are naturally excited about these and any other unexplained mysteries and want to read all the available literature about them. But there can be nothing more exciting than actually participating in the search for such creatures.

I therefore feel privileged to be the founder of yowie research in Australia, and to have encouraged others to follow my example.

The search for surviving 'relict hominids' in remote, hidden regions of the world has been called the last great search", and for me it is a fascinating one.

Parts 14-16 This article [ Parts 14-16] is an updated version of the 1995 Mysterious Australia section on the Yowie is composed of extracts from my 2001 Yowie book: “Giants From the Dreamtime” -The Yowie in Myth and Reality. Copyright (c) 2001 Rex Gilroy, Uru Publications.

That sober Australians are claiming to have seen creatures thought to be confined only to the vast Himalayan ranges will surprise many. Yet incredible as it may seem, there is an enormous amount of evidence to support this contention.

“Giants From The Dreamtime - The Yowie in Myth and Reality” is the result of almost 45 years extensive research and contains around 1,000 reports from my enormous collection of case histories. A host of photographic evidence will be presented, demonstrating the Yowie, or “hairy man” is an integral part of Australia’s stone-age past and a distant relative of ourselves.

This hypothesis is backed up by fossil skull-types, crude ‘dawn tools’, and massive stone ‘megatools’ of gigantic beings who have left their fossilised footprints Australia-wide, demonstrating that our stone-age past pre-dates the appearance of the Aborigines, not by thousands, but millions of years!

To present the Yowie mystery in its proper context, relict hominid evidence from south-east Asia, New Guinea, other west Pacific Islands and New Zealand is revealed, demonstrating how the ancestors of these ‘manimals’ once spread out across the earth via land-bridges that formerly joined Australia/New Guinea/New Zealand with what is now island south-east Asia to the Asian mainland. “Hairy man” was a name given by the Aborigines to any non-Aboriginal race with which they shared this continent, but the term centred primarily upon at least three basic forms.

These forms were either the height of an average human being, an enormous man-like and also ape-like form. All were known by different names Australia-wide, but all meant either “hairy man” or “great hairy man”. The smaller form of “hairy man” was described as standing, in the case of male, from 2m to 2.6m tall, being hairy, muscular creatures; whereas the females were smaller at around 1.5m tall, with less hair and of lighter build and with long, pendulous breasts.

The heads of these creatures differed from Aborigines, in that they were long and narrow in shape, with a low forehead and thick, projecting eyebrow ridges. The general appearance of these primitive beings recalls Homo erectus [Java man] as the book demonstrates.

They were known to make fire, manufacturing crude stone and wooden tools; killing animals for food, as well as feeding upon nuts, roots and berries. The giant version of these beings reached between 3 and 4m in height. A mineralised skull fragment of an approximate 3m tall hominid unearthed by the author at Coolah, central western NSW on August 5th, 2000, displays structural features showing it to be the left projecting eyebrow ridge and low, receding forehead of a giant form of Homo erectus. The giant ape-like race appears to be something else entirely.

The author has gathered, over many years, a photographic and cast collection of often huge, opposable big-toed footprints which are remarkably similar to Yeti footprints found in the Himalayas, which together with the large, mineralised [ironstone] skull of an ape-like creature of around 2.6m height [from a central Qld site], suggest a race of Gigantopithecine monsters of between 3 and 4 metres height once roamed ‘Dreamtime’ Australia.

This book, the definitive work on the Yowie mystery, is the first of its kind to be released in Australia. It will not please conservative university establishment scientists, but then I have, as with my two previous books, written for the layperson in layperson’s language that the average Australian can make up their own minds on the issue.

Fossil footprints preserved in volcanic ash deposits dating to late Pliocene times and earlier, demonstrate there were other gigantic beings as well as modern human height people wandering this land 3 million or more years ago. My wife Heather and I have recorded hundreds of such fossils Australia-wide and lately have made some remarkable fossil hominid and hominoid footprint discoveries on the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, which question more than ever, the conservative “politically correct” view, that only Aborigines occupied stone-age Australia.

Besides Homo erectus-type Yowies, there are also the “little hairy people”, ‘lost’ pygmy-size Aborigines and other natives recorded from remote corners of the continent. The author has gathered a considerable amount of evidence from eastern Australia, Central Australia and elsewhere suggesting secretive tribal groups of these little people share the land with those taller, hairy neighbours which are the main subject of this book.

Sightings reports and “very close encounters of the hairy kind”, dating from early European settlement times to the present day are presented from every Australian state. The limitations of space permit me only to present a small sample in this article. Let us now examine some of these. During the 1830's tale were rife, among the settlers of the Tasmanian interior, of large, hairy ‘Bugaloos’, or “hairy men” [one of many Tasmanian Aboriginal names for these creatures].

Like their mainland cousins, these hominids stood taller than a normal human, were strong and muscular, and terrifying to look upon. In the Burnie district of north-western Tasmania about this time, a man and his wife returned to their remote bark hut from a supply-purchasing trip to find it had been smashed beyond repair by massive rocks hurled at the roof and walls by more than one of these man-giants.

Early 19th century settlers around Burnie often blamed local Aborigines for vanished stock, but the tribespeople denied the charges. “Makoron Koro, Makoron Koro”, [“hairy man, hairy man”] was their emphatic reply, and said that groups of these sub-men roamed the dense forests of the interior.

They warned Europeans never to approach them unless armed, for the Makoron Koro’s were giants, taller than any normal man and of tremendous strength. The Makoron Koro’s were similar to Victoria’s “great hairy men”, and many similar traditions continue to grow in the New South Wales-Victorian southern Alps.

Hereabouts for the last 100 years of so there have been countless mysterious happenings involving “hairy giants” and smaller hominids, and these spill over into the far south coast and inland regions of New South Wales. Tall hairy figures have been sighted by mountaineers, skiers and isolated farmers; mystery giant footprints found in the snow, and strange eerie cries heard at night from the forest depths.

In October 1990, Dereck Holmes, while camped on the bank of the source of the Snowy River below Mt Kosciusko, awoke at first light to peer from his tent. As he did so, he caught sight of a 1.6m tall hairy female creature standing nearby amid granite boulders. As he emerged, bewildered at the sight, she bolted away disappearing over a granite outcrop. The Blue Mountains, west of Sydney is a land of many mysteries, yet there is one above all others that has since early European settlement times been the subject of endless speculation - the Yowie, or ‘hairy man’.

True, back then as in modern times, there were many sceptics, yet there were too many sightings made by bushwalkers and isolated property owners; far too many footprints of the creatures found in remote valleys; and far too many Aboriginal traditions of these hairy giants, for the existence of the Yowie to be dismissed out of hand. The book contains a large chapter on the Blue Mountains, with reports dating from the first settlement period of the region in the 1820's to the present day. Recently there have been more reports of eerie happenings in Jamieson Valley, below Katoomba, particularly around the ‘Ruined Castle’ rock formation, where I experienced my own, first sighting of the “hairy man”, back in 1970.

I had been climbing Mt solitary on August 7th that year and was returning along the ‘saddle’ between Mt Solitary and the ‘Castle” that afternoon when I decided to look for fossils on the steep western slope of the ‘Castle’ overlooking Cedar Valley. There is thick scrub here, and as I picked up slate rocks containing fossil plants, I heard sounds of breaking foliage and twigs snapping underfoot further down the slope. Chancing to look down among the foliage I saw, 15m away, a naked, darkish, hairy skinned male creature approximately 2m in height, moving across the slope from north to south oblivious to my presence.

The hominid looked rather primitive, with big eyebrows and hairy arms and long dark hair trailing down from its head. He appeared to be scavenging, as if looking for fern roots or other bush food. I watched in silence as he disappeared into the dense scrub, heading southward down the slope in the direction of Cedar Creek I glanced at my watch. The time was 3.30pm. The mystery hominid had been in view for barely 4-5 minutes. I climbed up the slope in haste to reach the track, as I knew I had to hurry to get out of the valley before sundown. Nine years later, I was to lead the now famous “Radio 2KA Yowie Expedition”, assisted by soldiers of the Penrith-based 176th Air Supply Squadron, equipped with radios and other technical equipment.

A full account of our adventures is presented in the book. However, in the course of our searches [divided into three separate groups], three sets of large hominid footprints were discovered. However, it was discovered that the 2KA personnel accompanying the search had not brought along the casting plaster they were supposed to, so I had to leave camp the next morning around 4am, for my Katoomba home, pick up a bag and return. It was, as it turned out, not enough even for one large footprint and when I made a cast of the best specimen [the tracks were in hard mud and there had not been rain for three weeks] I had to mix soil with the plaster. The cast was eventually transported safely out of the valley and remains in my possession.

The footprint measures 42cm long by 23.5cm across the toes. It is 12.5cm wide at mid-foot and 12cm wide across the heel. The impression is 3.5cm deep at the heel, 5cm deep at mid-foot and 7.5cm deep at the toes. The hominid who made this track stood up to 2.75m tall. My wife Heather and I have, for most of our 28 years of marriage, spent weeks at a time on field investigations all over Australia, and one of the major areas of Yowie activity that continues to attract us is the northern NSW coastal mountain ranges, extending into southeast Qld.

They are fearsome cannibals, killing and roasting any Aborigines [and others] they happen to catch; while in far north Qld tribespeople have always feared the ‘Turramullies’, huge, 2.4m tall, hairy ape-like monsters reminiscent of the giant man-like ape, Gigantopithecus that roamed Asia half a million years ago.

A similar monstrous, gorilla-like being of the Western Australian tribes is the Jimbra, 3-4m tall, powerfully-built beasts that are the stuff of nightmares. Sightings of these creatures, dating from pioneer times in the 19th century to modern times, as well as discoveries of their huge footprints, are present in the book.

“Giants From The Dreamtime” is a scientific approach to the Yowie enigma, with a comparative study of “hairy man” footprints and their similarities with many giant-size and other fossil hominid and hominoid-type footprints found across the continent, a study of gigantism and much, much more.

There is much hitherto unpublished material of the author presented which will surprise many people, information too often suppressed, because it throws into question the long-established ‘conservative’ view of our ancient past as presented in university text books. I also present sensible advice to any future would-be Yowie investigators.

The reader will also be awed at the great many discoveries my wife Heather and I have made in all our years together in the field. I feel privileged to be the founder of Yowie research and to have encouraged other, sensible researchers to follow my example. The search for surviving relict hominids in remote, hidden regions of the world, has been called the “last great search”, and it is both a fascinating and exciting one.