Possible Yowie Encounter. Otway National Park, Victoria.

[Merlin Power]

It was around 4pm on the Sunday afternoon of September 26. My girlfriend and I had been at Apollo Bay, Victoria for the weekend. Given that the Great Ocean Road was closed from Apollo Bay to Lorne, we had to take the alternative route through the the Otway National Park, Forest-Apollo Bay Road.

We decided to stop in the National Park on the way back as the scenery was so beautiful. We saw a sign on the side of the road that advertised a picnic ground. I have now found out the road is known as Sunnyside Road, Mt Sabine. The picnic ground is just off Sunnyside Road, and there is a trail that leads from the picnic ground to Sabine falls. We parked the car and decided to walk along the track and have a look. The countryside a mix of untouched forest with beech trees, mountain ashes, and ferns and other bracken at ground level, and pinus radiata plantations.

Now I have done a lot of research on this site and others, and I truly believe Yowies/bigfoots/sasquatches are real. I must make that clear. What that means is that I look for things that most others would miss in a similar situation.

The first thing that I noticed even about 150m down the track was that there were parts of the forest that didn't seem natural. Lots of branches, of similar thickness had been broken at similar heights, most of them propped at a 90 degree angle (see photos 1 and 2). They were all a bit higher up the trunks of the trees than I could reach (I am 6 foot 4 and probably have a reach of 8 1/2 feet or so on my toes). They all look like they had been snapped with force around 10-12 feet up the tree. These, while not massive trees, were much much thicker than I could ever get close to breaking with my hands. Probably four times thicker at least than I could break, if not a bit more. It just didn't feel right to me the way the bush had been manipulated.

Anyway along the trail a bit further, we found a structure to the side of the trail. You can see from photo 3 that the structure has five points of contact from five different logs. Then it dawned on me that each of them was braced against a trunk of a nearby tree. I went off the track to see how strongly in position they were. They were braced that hardly against the trunks of the nearby trees that I couldn't move the structure at all. It was so strong. I couldn't believe how strongly it was braced. It would take real strength to brace those logs like that.

We kept on moving along the track, and a noise caught my attention. I said to my girlfriend "quiet" "still". We both stopped walking and were deadly quiet and still. We turned to where the noise was coming from. To the right of us, there was a noise that both of us had never heard before. It was like a wooden version of an iPhone camera noise, a bit like the noise of bark being ripped off a tree. It was quite loud. The noise was around 30 metres from where we were, silent and still on the track. The noise happened around 12 more times, then one of the trees was shaken quite violently and aggressively. We got the feeling that whatever it was now knew we were there and it was making its prescience known.

As it happened, a sense of fear came over me. For the first time in my life, I felt like I wasn't the top dog in the Aussie bush. I stayed still with fear. Then whatever shook the tree, moved from where it was, on the right side of the track, to the front of the trail ahead of us. It moved to that position so quickly that it freaked the both of us out. It had moved what I guess to be 50m in a few seconds, through dense foliage. It dawned on me that it was now in front of us, blocking our further approach into the forest. We both had never experienced anything cover ground like that so quickly. The other strange thing was that it's motion was silent. It make no noise that we could hear as it moved, all the more amazing given how fast it had move. Unfortunately the foliage was so dense that we couldn't make anything out. We stood there still and silent for a little while longer, deciding whether we would go a bit further down the trail or head back to the car at the picnic ground. We decided to go a bit further down the trail, but decided to turn around and go back to the car. Fear got the better of us.

On the way back, we found another structure that looked totally out of place in the bush. There is no way that the branches fell like that. Someone or something had intentionally put the branches there in that arrangement (see photo 4).

Both of us really can't explain what we had encountered that afternoon. The more we think about it, the more we think that it was a Yowie. There is nothing in the Australian bush that would shake a tree like that, or move that quickly through the bush. Also, the feeling of fear we encountered, and the structures and parts of the bush that were out of place are other things that point us in that direction. We are so intrigued that we are thinking of going back to the site to have another look. Not sure whether I can gather the courage as it was scary.

[Lozza62]

Hi merlin....sounds like you had company.The tree structures are interesting.The shaking of the tree is probably a territorial display,lucky you didn't have rocks thrown at you.They seem to hang around picnic areas and lots of stories on forum of people having encounters on tracks at lookouts or walking trails.

[VicYowieResearch]

Hi Merlin,

You were not far away from were my friend came face to face with one a few years back. His report can be read here..

http://www.yowiehunters.com.au/index.ph ... toria-2010


As always, be careful in the bush. As Rusty pointed out on another thread we have no way of knowing what they are thinking.

Steve.

[wellymon]

Hi Merlin,

Thanx for sharing, great report and photos.

Definitely an encounter ! Your gut feeling is one to heed.

[Yowie bait]

Thanks for sharing your experience and photos Merlin. It was probably right near you and with you for awhile. You are game to keep walking. Good stuff!

[ChrisV]

I was so so about the story until the tree shook. Thats a tell tale sign its something different.
I've wondered about the tree structures also. Its healthy to look at how the branches fell, where their sources were and whether its a natural collapse or forced one.
I've seen similar things in areas of bushland around Sydney - and some seem natural and others defy logic.

Its good that your looking at both sides of the coin - and there is no doubt that you had an encounter.
And thanks for sharing.

[Thumper]

Hi merlin,
Can you elaborate on the movement you saw? So it moves from your right side to the center, a distance of 50m in a few seconds. You mention it was silent, and that you couldn't make it out, so what exactly did you experience? You saw a quick motion between trees, or you heard some soft sounds?

I'm surprised you had the guts to carry on, I think I may have sprinted for the car...

[Merlin Power]

Hi all. Thank you to all of you who have replied and for your thoughts. It kind of defies belief that I would have an encounter the way I did, under what was an impromptu idea to check out the scenery.

As I said in my account, from the moment we got a little bit down the track, things just looked out of place to me. The way the bush had been manipulated, it wasn't natural.

I could see how a tree broken here and there might have fallen in the position they were in due to natural reasons, but for so many of the branches to be broken at a 90 degree angle like they had at a similar height, and not just in one spot but at different spots along the trail, it just felt bizarre and out of place.

Also, with reference to the other structures like the ones in photos 3 and 4, there is no way that the branches had fallen like that naturally. It would be a one in one million chance. Also, the way the structure in photo 3 was braced against the trunks of larger trees, it was constructed like that, purposefully. I do wonder whether we were being watched when I tried to shake that structure. Imagine someone trying to destroy something that you had worked on lol.

The only time that I had experienced that feeling of fear was an encounter I had a few years ago at Mallacoota which I reported on here. I wasn't as scared that time as we were around a camp fire, and the fire gave me a bit of security, and also the ground there was much more open. In the enclosed forest this time, I got this feeling that I was extremely vulnerable all of a sudden. It is a deep seeded fear. I wish I had of had the courage to grab my iPhone out of my pocket to film the tree shaking in particular, but to be honest I was too scared to move. I just sat there still as I could, my senses 100% tuned into what was happening.

My girlfriend said that she was too scared to look at the tree shaking and looked to the ground. She was also weary of making eye contact in case whatever it was saw that as a form of aggression. I was looking acutely but the forest was too dense to make things out properly. The tree however was clearly shaking.

I wouldn't say it was courageous going a bit further into the trail. It took at bit of time to talk ourselves into it, but we got only another 100m down the trial and both of us got that sense of fear and vulnerability again and we turned around and headed back to the picnic ground.

I think when you get a feeling like that, you should listen to it.

[Merlin Power]

Hi merlin,
Can you elaborate on the movement you saw? So it moves from your right side to the center, a distance of 50m in a few seconds. You mention it was silent, and that you couldn't make it out, so what exactly did you experience? You saw a quick motion between trees, or you heard some soft sounds?

I'm surprised you had the guts to carry on, I think I may have sprinted for the car...

Thanks, we really didn't make it that much further until we turned around. I was so curious, but that gave way to fear eventually. Plus it was getting darker and darker in the forest as the sun was getting lower in the sky, and being there without daylight was not an option after what we had experienced.

In terms of the movement, it was like my eyes were playing tricks on me, almost like the first time I saw an f1 car brake. Your eyes know how fast roughly an animal should move, like for instance a kangaroo hopping along, and it was moving far more quickly than I expected through dense forest. It was so impressive.

I really couldn't make it out though as it was moving so quickly and the forest is dense in there. In terms of noise, we both couldn't hear anything as it moved. I have no idea how it moved so quietly for the speed it was going. It is freaky. I can see how they would be awesome hunters as if you can move that quickly without making noise. Prey would be toast.