In response to email sent by hans

[Stainmaster]

I recieved this email from the AYR via email, as I assume all registered Victorian users did.

Hello Dean,
>
> I had an interesting encounter in the bush very near to Marysville
> township (on the Oxlee Lookout track 10mins walk off Falls Rd if you know
> the area). While never actually sighting anything, I was stopped in the
> bush examining an extraordinarily large fallen tree when from behind I
> heard a large crashing sound in the bush, perhaps 50-100m away. I would
> have assumed it to be a tree branch falling except for the ongoing
> movement I could hear for the next couple of minutes afterwards. I
> remained still as initially I thought it may be a feral bull, pig or
> brumby - nothing too worrying, but I'd still be wanting to give a large
> animal plenty of room, and I have encountered these many times before.
> When the movement noise appeared to settle down, I was about to resume
> walking up the hill when I heard a noise unlike anything I have heard
> before in more than 30 years of experience in the Australian bush and on
> farms with animals. The noise could best be described as a brief, loud, th
> roaty (airy?) bellow. As with the movement that I had heard, it sounded
> like it was coming from something large, only now I was pretty certain
> that it was not coming from any animal audibly recognisable to me, and it
> was coming from exactly the same direction as the movement had. The
> closest sound that I can equate the noise to is strangely enough from the
> raptors calling eachother in the kitchen scene in Jurasic Park (movie).
>
> Suffice to say, this got my complete attention. I picked up a stick to
> offer whatever defence it could (I was otherise unarmed aside of a pocket
> knife), and made for the road 10 minutes walk below. Once I started to
> move towards the road I heard nothing further except for birds in the
> bushes (which strangley I do not remember hearing while listening to the
> other noises, however, this is likely fear coming in to play). Once back
> at the road I walked on towards Stevenson Falls (further into the bush),
> but remained on the road and never heard another unusual sound.
>
> Thought you might be interested. I am also going to contact the local
> Parks people and find out what sort of Feral animals they have in the area
> and report what I heard.
>
> Cheers,
> Hans Baer.

I know the area around Marrysville very very well. And well this area brought me to believe that there is something out there.
In my younger days aroud 14 years ago i was very into Looking after native fish and travelled around the east side of Australia finding and catching native fish for study and breeding in captivity to preserve them from introduced species.
We did some work below and above Stevenson Falls as below there was trout and no native galaxids but above the falls was galaxids as the trout could not get up to get them.
All around this area are hundreds of small creeks A mate and i used to go on trout kills we would park the car at bridge and walk upstream on sometimes very small creeks that you can not see from the road and the only way you know they are there is due to a bridge, Most trips we would get 50-100 trout.
This one trip we parked our car and headed up stream armed with rods and all gear and a map! we followed this creek and it was very hard going it took 10 hours to do 4 Kms of creeks at the end we lost the creek into the ground and ashumed we were going in the right direction, :-) we were NOT. It started to get dark and we had no light i had my lighter so a fire was not a problem but getting to the car was, It got to the point that we said if we dont find the road soon we are sitting the night out about a min later we stumbled onto the road and it was dark. The spot we were the road was a very big sort of circle so we could head in any direction and sooner or later come across the car. I heard sounds during that walk that freaked me at the time i put it down to Male deer fighting and we could hear baning of what sounded like antlers and underbrush being moved/torn/broken! Allthough it was not close the sound travels out there with all those valleys and no outside noise i was so glad when we got back to the car. I still have doubt that it was deer that we heard that night. Hence my interest in this site.
There are spots around that area that im sure no man has travelled some of the most dense bush you can find.

[dawn]

There not called the Mystic Mountains for nothing!

[Hans]

It looks like my email went to a broader audience than I had thought (which is cool).

...and I hadn't thought about them being called the Mystic Mountains when this happened.

I have bushwalked & MTB'd around there a few times before without incident, althought I do remember feeling a little "creepy" when wanderind around up at Lake Mountain in May 04 by myself, but never heard or saw anything. The Australia bush (or any bush) can be strangely creepy when you are on your own sometimes - something about all those animals watching and you can't see them. That said, I grew up on a 5 acre block on the northern outskirts of Sydney where two borders of the block bordered National Park. The local Aborigines used to bury their dead under small piles of stones along the ridge tops (which we were on), and we had about four of these graves on our land. I remember feeling very creepy frequently around there.

I do not know what to make of this, but it is certainly very interesting to think of what it could be.

[dawn]

Hi Hans,
I'm going to go for a wander in the next week or so. I know the area though I havn't been on that particular trail. We spend every weekend at Buxton where we have a weekender. If it helps, I and several people I know have had seperate encounters with a big black puma? near the area you have had the encounter.
You are definately not alone in your experience. I gather you were on your own? Might have surprised whatever it was.

[Hans]

Hi Dawn,

The thought of it being a cat crossed my mind as I found an interesting footprint in the area also (can't remember if I mentioned that in the previous post). I remember thinking at the time that the print looked like a large cat, but didn't think that would be possible there and figured it must have been a large, mis-shaped wombat print.

I am going to be out of town for the week+ starting Saturday, but some weekend after that would be happy to head up there with a group.

[Stainmaster]

I would like to say Sorry Hans for posting that even if you are OK with that, I thought i was a news letter type email that everyone received! not a site stuff up So even if you dont want it i would like to take the time to say in SORRY as i should have thought first i was just excited that someone else had heard things up there.

[Hans]

No worries, appreciate the sentiment!