Live near Sydney, N.S.W. and feel pretty sure that Yowies don’t exist? You just might want to take a trip to The Rock lookout at Mulgoa.
Go after dark, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. To be safe, make sure you pack a spare pair of underpants.
Of course, there are no guarantees that you will see or hear anything, but The Rock Lookout has a long history of interesting Yowie encounters in the AYR and Cropster files. None of the witnesses appear to have known each other, so that makes the ongoing events there even more intriguing.
Hairy horrors aside, it’s a magnificent spot. Walk around 200 metres from the car park and there are spectacular views of the Nepean River and the lower Blue Mountains National Park. Be careful though; the lookout has no fences or guardrails, so stay well away from the escarpment. There are no amenities at the lookout and the short, steep walk down is not suitable for wheelchairs, prams or unicycles. There are no lights after dark, either.
Let’s take a quick tour through the AYR/Cropster, Mulgoa archives, starting with a post from ‘Chris’ in the AYR Forum back in May 2003:
“Some years back (about 1993-5) I used to bushwalk west of Mulgoa while recovering from a serious car prang. Taking only a walking stick or staff after the first few months, I would walk at all times of day and sometimes at night or more often the evening. I had actually helped bust a couple of pot plantations in my travels so I wasn’t always on the regular tracks.
Anyway, one clear night I went for a walk at about 8:30 into the layby on Fairlight road near the lookout, a 5km round trip. I had gotten about 50m off the track when I heard some movement in front. Being a well trained Army scout I froze and listened. The footsteps were measured and unhurried and coming toward me… now I’m no pussy! and I know all about the Mulgoa tiger, blue mountain cats, etc but the word Yowie was one I never thought would go through my mind, lame, a kilometre from home holding a stick and not an M16 or my trusty .303.”
“As I stood there the footsteps got closer and some wattle branches waved. As far as I could tell it wasn’t boots (not crunching ). I stood on one side of a large ghost gum and the footsteps went on the other about 3-5m away then , they …stopped. Bloody hell! I thought. I reckoned I must have stood there for an hour but it was probably only a few seconds, then the footsteps proceeded on into the bush that is just above the Nepean River. That’s my weird encounter. It wasn’t until a few days later that I went there again an realised that the branches I had seen move against the sky were at least 2.5 metres above the ground. Moral: always go ready for bear 7.62+, carry a torch and spare underpants… “
A well trained Army scout? Go armed for bear in a National Park?
Let’s face it – Chris’ post is a little hard to take seriously, but the next Mulgoa encounter was rock solid.
In 1994, Julie Lohan was 18 years old when, with a friend, she decided to head out on a night drive to The Rock lookout. I interviewed her in 2015.
“We saw it on the drive out to the lookout, on the dirt stretch just off the bitumen; a straight stretch [and] this massive, black … I remember saying at the time that it didn’t have a shape – it didn’t have a neck – just bizarre – and I just braked…
I stopped the car – I didn’t want to get any closer to that …. and we just looked at each other and screamed and wound the windows up. We thought, ‘Oh my God, what is this thing? Is it going to come towards us?’ I was driving an old Datsun 120Y at the time; there were no power windows. By the time we wound the windows up it was gone, basically.
Pretty much as soon as it was there, it was ‘gone’. It was massive, though. It wasn’t that close to the car, but it was kind of dwarfing the single-track road, so I imagine if you got close to it. It was something I’d never seen before. If I hadn’t had anyone with me…”
Cropster: Did you see this thing step onto the road – or was it already on it?
Julie: That was the weird thing … it wasn’t on the road as we drove along … it didn’t step out of the bush or anything – it was just suddenly ‘there’.
Cropster: How far ahead of the car was it?
Julie: It was so long ago… 100 metres, maybe. We were pretty scared.
Cropster: What shape was it?”
Julie: I remember sketching it later… the bottom half was a bit blurry – I don’t remember seeing two legs or anything like that, but the top went up into shoulders and then a head type of thing… it’s hard…
Cropster: Did it move off the road?
Julie: It was just gone. But it wasn’t like we saw it take a step off into the bush – that’s the strangest thing that happened – it must have moved at lightning speed… I dunno.
Cropster: But the shape wasn’t just vague like a shadow, like smoke?
Julie: No – it was big and black … I remember it taking up the whole of the track or road. It was definitely solid – not ghostly..
Cropster: Did you have a sense of skin or hair or something?
Julie: No, I don’t remember it being a hairy, ape-type thing – just blackish. The distance that we were, I don’t think we could tell.
Cropster: In your report you said it was something like 10 feet tall – that’s huge!
Julie: Yeah – it was massive – my husband is 6 feet tall – but if he’d been standing that far away… it was huge.
After the creature was gone, Julie, in order to turn her vehicle around, had to drive past the spot where it had been standing:
Julie: Yeah – that wasn’t a good feeling – but I went slowly – surprisingly – because we wanted to see if we could see it again – but there was no sign of it. I remember slowing down as we [reached the place where it had been standing]. There were barbed wire fences alongside the track that [it] would have had to step over or jump over. We didn’t actually see it moving – it was there, then it was gone. But it didn’t bound or run – it was there and then gone. We were speechless at first and then it was like, ‘Oh my God, what was that? Did that really happen?”
The next report from the AYR archives is from March 2003:
“Here is a report of what we discussed on the telephone on Mon.
We drove out to Nepean River Lookout at Mulgoa N.S.W to test some lighting equipment. We arrived at the lookout about 2250Hrs. On arrival at the site I had a look around the general area for anybody else in the area.
The only wildlife I saw was a Tawny Frog Mouth Owl in a tree near our vehicle. We started to unpack the equipment and check it out, this we did for about 15 min. We secured the vehicle and the made our way off to the Lookout escarpment on the way down the track we were checking out the effectiveness of the L.E.D. Lights for night walking. I noticed that there was good plant regrowth since the Bushfires.
We walked about 400 – 500M down the track and went off track about 20m to the escarpment. When we got there we noticed some fog in the valley over the river which is about 100-200Ft below. I shone the spot light directly below our position. Visibility was good about half way down but it isn’t straight down there are rocks and trees as well. I panned the spotlight over the water but because of the fog visibility was limited, further out the light could reach the other side near the waters edge.
We must have been there for about 10 min when I heard something large/heavy walking below our position. I asked my mate if he heard it too which he replied yes. I shone the spotlight down to see what or who it was but due to the conditions we couldn’t see anything.
We stayed there for about another 5 min and then we moved back onto the track heading towards the vehicle. My mate said he wanted to check another part of the escarpment which is a purpose built lookout. It is about halfway from our last position. When we got there my mate was panning around with the spotlight for a couple of minutes and I said to him to turn it off and let our eyes adjust and look at the stars and surrounding area.
The light must have been off for a couple of minutes when we heard a loud screeching sound coming from what sounded like our last position. We both looked at each other with the same question “What the hell was that?” My mates first instinct was to turn on the spotlight in that area but due to conditions you can’t see much. As he was shining the spotlight around we heard the screeching again but closer.
I told him to turn off the light and listen. Again there was screeching but more frequent. We decided to head back to the vehicle on the way back there was no sounds. We got the gear stowed but no sooner had I closed the hatch there was another screech. We got in the vehicle and heard it again but this time it sounded like it was on the track. At that point we decided to drive off home.”
There was a similar report of strange vocalisations at the Lookout in May 2015.
So maybe take a trip up to The Rock. Enjoy the great view, the silence and serenity – but watch your back. Should anything weird happen – let me know.
Just don’t ask me to go out there…
That pic kind of reminds me of the landscape where my Dad encountered what he assumed was a bigfoot, or rather, as ridiculous as it sounds he saw red eyes up in a tree. I posted about it years ago on here. It was in woods along the Yadkin River. The weirdest thing in his opinion was the behavior of the hunting dogs- almost like they were in a trance. Have you ever heard of dogs acting like that Cropster?