Otways

[Mad Academic]

G'day All,

I arrived at the Beauchamp Falls camping area late Thursday. Had a meal and slept. Got up early and walked down to see the falls. As I had never been there before it was all new to me, but, on the way back up the trail I was able to locate the area of the sighting a few years ago that is well-documented on this website. There is only one area along the track where you can see thousands of thin saplings growing...all the rest is man-ferns and large trees. This area (and the track) is also adjoining a pine plantation, which tallies with what the witness described, so I am inclined to believe him.
I was keeping an eye out for possible tracks or walkways that a large animal might use and I thought I found only one and it was very close to the area of saplings. I started to walk in off the track when right in front of me I saw...a "stick structure". It consisted of one dead tree that had been growing right on the edge of the walking track, one thin, still-growing sapling, and one loose dead stick propped up on them. I have attached a photo. Now of course it is possible that it was "natural", or it could have been made by a person. I looked carefully at it and it seems that the thin sapling has been bent sideways and under the dead tree. There is thick foliage above that makes it unlikely the dead stick fell from above and just happened to sit as it is.
I was very surprised to see it!
That night I put 2 banana halves and half a rockmelon on the structure and set up a camera, but this morning the fruit was untouched and there were no photos. So that was a bit disappointing.
I walked other, more remote tracks and did not see another stick structure like that.

I noticed a couple of other things: about 10 metres into the forest from this structure was a tree with a red ribbon on it. As I was talking to some locals in the pub yesterday, one of them happened to mention that the Parks Dept always tie a red ribbon on a tree when they put a camera there, so as to help them find it. So I may not have been the first one to place a camera there. (I wonder why?)

I also made the mistake/point? of asking the locals if anything strange had been seen in the forest and they alll chimed in with "The Otway Panther". One of them claimed to have seen it himself. Only one woman said "there was a guy said he saw a big gorilla near Beauchamp Falls but he was up there collecting mushrooms"...cue uproarious laughter. None of them recall any old stories of the early settlers seeing anything strange.

If you see the total forest destruction in the old photos on display in the local historical places, it will be amazing if any Bush Apes still live here, because I'm sure they didn't about 100 years ago. The bush there today is all regrowth.

I must say camping out doesn't really agree with me...I have had to go to Colac for a decent shower and sleep! Surely there must be some Bush Apes not so far from civilisation??

Cheers,

MA

[Rusty2]

Hope you hear or see something cool MA !

[Yowie bait]

MA, why dont you try somewhere closer to home if you dont enjoy the camping? You might be suprised at what you find.

[Rusty2]

It's not dark yet , turn on your audio recorder .

[Boab Bob]

The Otways are tempting but i decided that i wouldn't go out there on the basis of that one report. Eastern Victoria .. north and east of Snowy River seems alot more attractive though that's further from Melbourne.
Having said that, there are numerous reports north of the Otways region as if yowies were moving seasonly north by northeast (or just northerly) in relatively open country towards the Blue Mountains

[Rusty2]

Soooo , what happened ?

[theOTyoWAYS777]

The Otways are tempting but i decided that i wouldn't go out there on the basis of that one report. Eastern Victoria .. north and east of Snowy River seems alot more attractive though that's further from Melbourne.
Having said that, there are numerous reports north of the Otways region as if yowies were moving seasonly north by northeast (or just northerly) in relatively open country towards the Blue Mountains

There are plenty of them in the otways. Anyone that says otherwise hasnt looked properly.

[micathia]

The Otways are tempting but i decided that i wouldn't go out there on the basis of that one report. Eastern Victoria .. north and east of Snowy River seems alot more attractive though that's further from Melbourne.
Having said that, there are numerous reports north of the Otways region as if yowies were moving seasonly north by northeast (or just northerly) in relatively open country towards the Blue Mountains

There are plenty of them in the otways. Anyone that says otherwise hasnt looked properly.

There are some yowie discussions in several 4x4/off-roader forums. One of them I remember was a guy who was driving a ute with windows down at night while passing otways, suddenly he heard a loud scream/howling he said just several metres away in the bush while he was passing by. He said that scared him and he nearly pooped.


On the other hand, the princess highway through otway is way too busy with many tourists going to see The Twelve Apostles.