The Yowie Unmasked

Australia officially entered the Bigfoot era when the Yowie went national in 1976 via George Gray and Rex Gilroy on Mike Walsh's Mid Day Show. No film but the testimony and conviction of Gray, and the confidence of Gilroy.

Can any conclusions be drawn about what may have happened? Not really - particularly when there are so many grey areas: George Gray was initially asleep when accosted in the dark, Robert and Dennis Gray - who were in the next room during the incident - appear never to have been interviewed, neither was Gray's boss Mac McGee, nor any other former resident of the Kookaburra who may have had further information. To do so, however, may have been difficult - the Kookaburra settlement was dismantled in 1969 and Gray didn't go public with his account until 1976. The following year Gray ventured back to the former settlement with the Gilroys but little remained.

Sure sounded spooky, though:

[The abandoned settlements] possess that eerie feeling that you are being watched from the forest by unseen eyes, but by night it is even more pronounced, and many campers are known to avoid these places.

The entire Carrai possesses this all-pervasive eeriness. Here no sun penetrates that green world of vines, swamp and jungle, a land where time seems to stand still.

Gilroy, R. (2001) “Giants from the Dreamtime: The Yowie in Myth and Reality” URU Publications: Katoomba, NSW. Pp 223.

As such, the George Gray Yowie became an enduring Australian mystery - a favourite for local authors of folklore and the unknown to ponder and entertain.

In the new Millenium, however, a pair of local historians began researching the rich history of the Carrai region and, as luck may have it, may have inadvertently solved the mystery of the George Gray Yowie. Geraldine Yabsley's (2009) The Cedar King and Andrew Messner's (2010) Carrai National Park and State Conservation Area History both quote an interview with former Kookaburra residents Reg and Basil Hudson:

On another occasion a man named George Gray was living in a hut at Kookaburra. ‘Ray Lawrence was a bit of a lout and knowing how easily frightened Gray was he decided to play a joke on him. Around ten or eleven at night Ray Lawrence, dressed in a lady’s fur coat and some gloves and flippers climbed through the window besides Gray’s bed and fell on top of him making “Yowie” type noises. Poor old Gray ran for his life and Ray Lawrence went back to his place and removed the evidence, not saying a word to anyone. Well, it was all around Kookaburra that a Yowie had attacked Gray and a few weeks later he went on the Mid Day show hosted by Mike Walsh. To the day he died old Gray swore black and blue that a Yowie had attacked him, but it was only Ray Lawrence’.

Could the George Gray Yowie simply be the result of a good old Aussie larrikin-style prank?

Gilroy (2001) described Gray as a "bushman" but living in a remote community while working in the mill doesn't necessarily make it so. Some of the long-term workers lived in Kookaburra with their families while others, like George Gray, lived and worked there seasonally or for the short-term before moving on. The bush is an unfamiliar place for many Australians especially at night. It is not unreasonable to presume that some of those Kookaburra residents and workers who did not grow up in the area were very uncomfortable in their rugged surrounds.

Brian McNamara: Bobby Reilly cam to live at Kookaburra and he lived in that house along Coachwood Road. He was very nervous of the bush and anything in it. His first night there they decided to go down and check how he was and they found he had collected all of the dogs from around town and had them in the hut with him for protection. Another night Bill Cant said that Bobby [c]ould come up to visit him and he would tell Bobby to be careful on his way home and to watch out for the “wasas” - that’s what we used to call yowies - and that “wasas had fur on their feet so you couldn’t hear them coming.” Anyway Bobby was walking home in the dark and fell over a cow that was laying down. As the cow started to get up Bobby took off back to Bill’s and Bill reckons that from the front door to the back door there were four doors and Bobby never touched the handle of one of them.

Yabsley, G. (2009) The Cedar King. p113.

Similar to the haunted house experience, for those unfamiliar with and/or uncomfortable in the bush every bump in the night takes on a sinister connotation which can be readily exploited for a storytelling experience and the Yowie (or "wasa") makes for a perfect Bogeyman - a man-like monster, ever present yet rarely seen other than in ambiguous glimpses. In a manner typical of Australian humour, those with fears were targeted for mirth by straight-faced larrikins. People have always made their own fun when formal sources of entertainment are lacking.

How isolated from the rest of the community was George Gray on the night of alleged incident?

Smith (1996) describes the incident location as being "a bush hut near the village of Kookaburra" while Healy and Cropper (2006) describe how Gray "camped in a hut surrounded by dense scrub".

In hindsight (and with new historical information) such descriptions are inaccurate and give a false impression of the setting of Gray's 1968 encounter which actually happened in Gray's residential hut and within the settlement of Kookaburra which itself was cleared of forest for 200-300 metres all around. In fact, Gray's hut was directly opposite the mill complex (see below).

After getting in touch with local author Geraldine Yabsley, I was able to contact the Hudson brothers for clarification - Basil had heard about Ray Lawrence’s prank from others but Reg was actually there at the mill at the time! The mill was a place to go after hours for a hot shower and an informal gathering and for that eventful night in 1968 provided a great vantage point to view proceedings.

Ed: Can you tell us what happened?

Reg Hudson: The old bloke was camped in the hut there and we often used to have a joke with him about the Yowies and that. Ray Lawrence, I think from what I can remember, [indistinct] had the coat on he just through it in through the window onto the bed with the old fellow and it frightened the buggery out of him.

E: So was there a wrestle or anything? Do you know anything about that?

RH: I don't know what went on inside but he wasn't there very long - he came out pretty quick.

E: So, George ran out of the hut, is that right?

RH: Yeah. I don't know what happened inside but he certainly come out pretty quick.

E: Were you there or is it just what you heard?

RH: We were at the mill - was half a dozen of us standing around there when it happened. It was in the night time you couldn't see much but we all thought it was a great joke anyhow.

E: So it was in the night and at the mill and Ray Lawrence jumped in there with the fur coat and George ran out and you could see him rum out, is that right?

RH: Yeah. He took off in a hurry. I said to Geraldine last night these Yowie stories and that, when we were there we were 14, 15, 16 we'd usually go shooting all night in those bloody scrubs through there near Kookaburra and Carrai shooting squirrels and possums and one thing or another. Bloody Yowies never worried us ... they're a myth. I don't know where they started but there are certainly none up here. I would walk through the bushes and scrubs all hours of the days and nights. If there was any about we'd have seen marks or something. We never saw anything like them.

There was another one supposed to be in Currumbi[?] Creek over from Kookaburra and a bloke by the name of Thomas Moyer - there was a bit of cattle rustling going on at the time. Anyhow, Tom was a big rough-built cowboy fellow - good bloke had been in America rough riding and one thing and another - and apparently he was chasing cattle through scrub and lantana and Christ knows that he got a lot of scratches and cuts all over him and someone asked him what happened and he said "A Yowie took to me. I've been [mustering]". There was no more cattle thieving going on - they stopped there. Ah, had some great stories about him.

Cattle duffing - the organised theft of cattle - was not an uncommon practice within the bush throughout Australian history . Sometimes the loss of livestock was blamed on a mysterious creature - like the Tantanoola Tiger - as cover for their illegal activities. Sure enough, concerned citizens would then dutifully report growls, roars, and even tiger sightings - such is the unreliable and sometimes-hysterical nature of human perception. Yet, the Thomas Moyer tale above is a rare example of the opposite - using a mysterious creature (Yowie) in order to deter theft of livestock. It is common for parents worldwide to reinforce to their children the dangers of the forest and waterways with tales of monsters, like Yowies and Bunyips, so why not with impressionable adults? If it works, it works.

Although the George Gray Yowie has been explained as a simple prank and no longer has any significance as a possible encounter with an unknown and unidentified species, it still remains a fabulous and unique Australian story - one that could be checked and covered in even greater detail by authors of the mysterious and unknown before the sands of time further obscure the details.

References:

Gilroy, R. (2001) “Giants from the Dreamtime: The Yowie in Myth and Reality” URU Publications: Katoomba, NSW.

Healy, T. & Cropper, P. (2006) “The Yowie: In Search of Australia’s Bigfoot” Anomalist Books: San Antonio, TX.

Messner, A. (2010) "Carrai National Park and State Conversation Area History: A Report for the NSW Parks and Wildlife Group" http://www.scribd.com/doc/25581025/Carrai-National-Park-and-Carrai-State-Conservation-Area-History.

Smith, M. (1996) “Bunyips and Bigfoots: In Search of Australia’s Mystery Animals” Millennium Books: Alexandria, NSW.

Yabsley, G. (2009) “The Cedar King”.