Sasquatch in Australia

JOAN MEETS THE SASQUATCH
PART ONE , PART TWO , PART THREE , PART FOUR, BIRDMAN, PART FIVE;PART SIX: IN AUSTRALIA,
FOREST RETREAT 07, OCTOBER 2007, APRIL 2008 WEEK ONE & WEEK TWO; OCTOBER 2008, APRIL 2009

Sasquatch in Australia ..................................................August, 2008

Sasquatch in Australia ..................................................August, 2007

Enroute to Niue Island to swim with the Humpback Whales, I stopped in Australia to spend a week with my family who live in the Blue Mountains. My son, his wife and my two grand children are four people I love to be with. My visit with them in their comfortable home was relaxing, joyful, educational and inspiring. They are the ideal family, very loving, with many fascinating interests and activities they enjoy together. I was able to join them in their wonderful life style in the lovely village of Katoomba.

While staying there, I would read myself to sleep at night with a book called THE YOWIE: In Search of Australia's Bigfoot. Always interested in the stories and experiences people are having with Bigfoot, I was happy to read that most of the sightings in Australia take place in the Blue Mountains, where my family lives. The Australian Sasquatch are called Yowies and I read with interest the experiences of a couple who lived nearby and had a 20 year connection and a friendship, with the Yowies.

The book did not reveal their address, but looking in the phone book, my grandson helped me to eliminate all the identical names of families who were not in the Blue Mountains area. In this way, I was left with 6 names to phone.

Against all odds, I made contact with the couple who seemed happy to hear from me. They are both teachers at the local High School. I spoke at length with the husband, Neil, about our common experiences with our friends in the woods. Talking with him was like meeting an old friend. I was interested in everything Neil had to say.

Neil felt the Yowies and the Sasquatch are very different people, but listening to him, I was aware of their common traits. Just like the Wise Ones that I know in the States, the Yowies' eyes shine red in the dark, they leave footprints in the mud, you can hear them moving in the brush, their presence causes the local dogs to bark wildly revealing their whereabouts, they leave twisted branches in their path and make signs with branches on the ground to announce themselves, they are highly intelligent, choosing when to be present and when to remain unseen, they have an uncanny ability to know your thoughts, they are playful and seem to enjoy confounding you, they don't want to be photographed and there are even some stories of a large black cat that runs with them, just as has been seen in the States.

Apparently the Yowie pound on the outside of Neil's house at night when they want him to come outdoors. He then either goes outside, or if he is tired and busy, Neil will turn his outside light on and off as a response to the Yowie who comes to visit. In this way they know he has heard them.

Neil pointed out that in Australia, people are not permitted to own guns and so perhaps the Yowie feel safer in the populated areas of the Blue Mountains, than the Sasquatch feel in America. As in the States, their natural forest environments are being encroached upon by human development.

The street where Neil lives, is a residential neighborhood with many houses that border on a mountainous, pristine wilderness reserve. It is a thick, overgrown jungle of trees and thorny thickets, along with swampland and steep cliffs, that are not easy to negotiate. However the Yowie walk through it with ease, as if it were flat, open land…. Moving swiftly, quickly covering long distances.

The Australian Aboriginal elders call the Yowies the Doolagah (meaning hairy men) and confirm that they are attracted by food, offered by people or by fruit trees that grow in backyards. They have knowledge of the Doolagah and many stories which are mostly shared among their own people.

Neil kindly invited me to go into the woods and listen to the footsteps and the vocal sounds of the Yowie. Similar to my interactions with the Sasquatch, he sits in a cleared area of the woods, a walking trail, on a lawn chair, keeping warm and watching and listening to the sounds around him. When I return to Australia in 2008, I hope to meet some of Neil's friends, Yowies and others, to share more stories and enjoy the night sounds of the bush country.