Giants From the Dreamtime the Yowie In Myth And Reality

Tweed Valley 1935

Monster men of Lamington Plateau

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 agonizing yelp-then all went 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 torn 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 the 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.

South Lismore 1935

Monster men of Lamington Plateau

After reading of the experience of the two Woodenbong ladies, a 52 year old man told the Lismore Northern Star that he sighted a Yowie in 1935, on his late grandfather's dairy farm on Three Chain Road, South Lismore.

He was, he said, standing on his grandparents' verandah at 9pm on a moonlit winter's eve and saw a 'man' walking in from the hills. His grandfather's horse near the house started raising a fuss. The 10 year old witness went inside and told his grandfather who, when he saw what it was, blew out the lamp, grabbed his rifle and watched from a small kitchen window. The Yowie was visible in moonlight 25 years away.

The man recalled that the creature's head had no neck, the head being sunk into its shoulders, and it seemed to have a hunched back but was standing upright, and was much thicker than a man in the chest and shoulders. The grandfather said later that it was the same creature he had seen a few years earlier when he'd ridden up a gully to pick some guavas. The Yowie came down sone side of the gully, crossed creek, then climbed the other side of the hill, making the horse play up badly.

At that time, in 1935, the area behind South Lismore was a lot wilder than now and the mountains and hills were covered in thick trees. It was about the time of the above story that settlers of the wild country around the base of the rugged Lamington Plateau known as the Tweed Valley, just inside the Qld border, were reporting many similar encounters with the 'hairy man'.

Dove Lake 1935

Larger than man-sized Footprints

The distance from Dove Lake to Cradle Mountain is 85 km, covered by a long winding track that takes the traveller on a five day journey across terrain that has killed some people

It was constructed during the 1930's and emerges at Lake St. Clair. The Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park presents a vast area in which the 'Bugaloo' [another local Aboriginal name for these hominids],is claimed to linger on to the present day. Indeed, the area has been the scene of some recent giant footprint finds.

Back in 1935, about a dozen larger-than-man-sized footprints were discovered on the Dove Lake shore by campers, while another party of campers that same year claimed they had observed through binoculars, a pair of strange hominid creatures - a hairy looking male and female - moving among rocks on a nearby slope.

The hominids soon disappeared before the people could get a closer look, and although they searched the spot where they had seen the mystery pair, due to the rocky terrain, the people failed to find any tracks. Very little was heard of the 'Bugaloos' thereabouts until, in 1952, a lone bushman reported sighting a group of several man-sized hairy creatures in the Dove Lake area while on a camping trip.