The Lost City - Litchfield National Park, Northern Territory
Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2018 4:30 pm
Hello People.
Firstly, this is bit of a strange event and even now I’m not sure what to make of it. I suppose the best thing to do is to relate what happened as best I can and allow you to interpret events however you want.
In August last year I had been spending some time with a Polish backpacker who was working in Darwin and we made the most of the dry season by going camping and hiking whenever we both had time off.
On one of these trips we spent the day at Litchfield National Park and late in the afternoon decided to visit a place called the Lost City which is a cluster of unusual rock formations about 10km off the main road.
We arrived there about half an hour before sunset and spent some time walking the tracks and having a look around. When we arrived back at the carpark (a dirt turning circle) we realised we had the place to ourselves and decided to set up camp rather than go back to one of the established camp sites around Litchfield as they are usually quite busy during the dry season.
So we got set up, had some dinner under the stars and then got in the tent which was basically a dome covered in insect mesh because we didn’t bother putting the fly cover on. It was a nice, cool night, very still and very quiet. Anyway, one thing led to another and we ended up “fooling around” for a while before deciding to get some sleep.
At around 3am my camping buddy got up to relieve herself and went to the back of my vehicle to get some girl things out of her bag. While she was at the back of the car she said to me (in a heavy Polish accent) what sounded like “sometink is breeding out here” which I just figured was some reference to the thousands of mozzies that were hanging around our tent so I didn’t pay too much attention.
She had already been up a couple of times to answer nature’s call but this time she went 180 degrees in the opposite direction to her previous spot which I thought was unusual because the terrain was a lot rougher in that direction.
Anyway, she was soon back in the tent and then grabbed hold of me and said she had never been so scared in her life. I asked her what was wrong and she said, “I told you. Something was breathing out there.”
I realised I had misheard her the first time and was a little alarmed that some animal was hanging around the camp. I asked her if it sounded like a dog panting (thinking it may have been a dingo) and she said no. When I asked her to describe the sound she sort of exhaled audibly, paused a couple of seconds and then did it again. I didn’t actually hear anything myself so I asked her if she saw anything. This is where things get a bit weird.
She said she didn’t “see” anything but there was something in the patch of bush at the centre of the dirt turning circle we were camped next to, about 30 metres away. The same direction from where she heard the breathing come from. I grabbed my torch and got out to have a look but didn’t see or hear anything. The patch of scrub was about 10-15 metres in diameter and the torch is very bright so I was pretty confident nothing was there. I then went back to the tent and we both went to sleep.
The next morning I pressed her a little bit to try and understand what had made her so frightened. I asked if she thought it may have been a pig or a buffalo or something and then she hesitated a couple of seconds and said, “No. A yeti.”
Needless to say she now had my full attention but I kept my demeanour neutral and just prodded her a little to see what would come out without any influence from myself. I asked her if it was tall like me and straight away she shook her head and said no. She then held her hand about mid-torso to indicate height so I took it to be about 4 feet tall.
I then asked her to describe what she saw in detail and she gave me a perfect description of a yowie, albeit one of the smaller varieties. She said it was looking with intense curiosity at our tent and she got the impression it had been there a while and that it was “mature”.
I was pretty amazed to hear all of this from a Polish backpacker with absolutely no idea or concept of what a yowie was. I’d certainly never bought the subject up and it was only a week later that I told her I had an interest in the subject. She was actually very relieved because until then she didn’t think I believed her. The reason she used the word yeti was because it was the only word she knew to describe what she had seen.
Again, this is where things get a bit weird. When I pressed her on what she “saw” she told me she turned to look in the direction the breathing was coming from but only “saw” the creature in her mind. I know, it sounds flaky but that’s how she related her experience. She described how she was hit with this image of a yeti-like creature looking directly at her and it immediately made me think of other witness reports where they describe getting “zapped” with extremely strong impressions, visions and feelings.
I decided to go back and have a look around the patch of scrub to see if there was any indication that something had been there and stared by walking around the dirt turning circle. I hadn’t gone far when I spotted two very distinct footprints in the fine bulldust on top of the hard dirt road. By this time a couple of cars had been and gone and one print was vague but I managed to take a pretty good photo of the other one. I was in bit of a rush because other cars were now coming down the road and I didn’t have the good sense to place something next to it for scale. I did place my own foot next to the print at some stage and estimate it to be about 30cm long.
What really caught my attention was the shape and curve of the instep. As you can see in the photo, the big toe follows the curve of the instep and is angled out and away from the line of the foot. By comparison, most people’s toes will point in the direction of the foot. My own toes actually point in the other way (I wore pointy shoes as a kid) so I know this print definitely does not belong to me.
The other curious thing about this photo is that there does not appear to be much definition in the area where you would expect to see the rest of the toes. While the big toe and the rest of the print is clearly defined (you can see dermal ridges over the entire print) the remaining area is indistinct yet still appears as if the ground has been pressed smooth by something.
I should also point out that those diamond shapes and lines that surround the print are tyre tracks from vehicles the day before. I suppose it’s possible that wind (there wasn’t any) or a passing car (only 1 at maybe 10-20kmh) may have partially altered the definition of the print before I took the photo but if that were the case then I’d also expect to see a loss of definition in the dermal ridges which have remained quite clear.
All I can say for sure is that the print does not belong to me or my friend. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person with big toe at such an angle. I don’t consider myself a podiatrist by any means so if anyone can offer a rational interpretation for the print I found I’d really love to hear it.
As for my Polish friend, it was about a week later when I told her I had an interest in Yowies and explained to her that they were basically Australia’s version of a Yeti. She was somewhat relieved because her experience now had some sort of context and she understood why I was so interested in her account of what happened. It was also at this point that I showed her the photo I had taken and she was quite shaken after viewing it, I think because it somehow made her experience a lot more real to her. She then gave me a curious piece of advice and told me was that if I ever had another encounter I should not try to talk to it because “they do not communicate that way.”
My apologies if this account is a bit long but I just wanted to accurately relate the event as it happened. Also, I would have posted this earlier but had actually lost track of the photo until recently.
Anyway, that pretty much sums up the whole event as it happened and as I said at the start I really don’t know what to make of it. In summary, a Polish girl who heard breathing and saw a “yeti” (but didn’t see it) and a clear footprint was found in the dust which may belong to said “yeti” or a horribly disfigured barefoot camper.
I’m open to ideas on this one.
Firstly, this is bit of a strange event and even now I’m not sure what to make of it. I suppose the best thing to do is to relate what happened as best I can and allow you to interpret events however you want.
In August last year I had been spending some time with a Polish backpacker who was working in Darwin and we made the most of the dry season by going camping and hiking whenever we both had time off.
On one of these trips we spent the day at Litchfield National Park and late in the afternoon decided to visit a place called the Lost City which is a cluster of unusual rock formations about 10km off the main road.
We arrived there about half an hour before sunset and spent some time walking the tracks and having a look around. When we arrived back at the carpark (a dirt turning circle) we realised we had the place to ourselves and decided to set up camp rather than go back to one of the established camp sites around Litchfield as they are usually quite busy during the dry season.
So we got set up, had some dinner under the stars and then got in the tent which was basically a dome covered in insect mesh because we didn’t bother putting the fly cover on. It was a nice, cool night, very still and very quiet. Anyway, one thing led to another and we ended up “fooling around” for a while before deciding to get some sleep.
At around 3am my camping buddy got up to relieve herself and went to the back of my vehicle to get some girl things out of her bag. While she was at the back of the car she said to me (in a heavy Polish accent) what sounded like “sometink is breeding out here” which I just figured was some reference to the thousands of mozzies that were hanging around our tent so I didn’t pay too much attention.
She had already been up a couple of times to answer nature’s call but this time she went 180 degrees in the opposite direction to her previous spot which I thought was unusual because the terrain was a lot rougher in that direction.
Anyway, she was soon back in the tent and then grabbed hold of me and said she had never been so scared in her life. I asked her what was wrong and she said, “I told you. Something was breathing out there.”
I realised I had misheard her the first time and was a little alarmed that some animal was hanging around the camp. I asked her if it sounded like a dog panting (thinking it may have been a dingo) and she said no. When I asked her to describe the sound she sort of exhaled audibly, paused a couple of seconds and then did it again. I didn’t actually hear anything myself so I asked her if she saw anything. This is where things get a bit weird.
She said she didn’t “see” anything but there was something in the patch of bush at the centre of the dirt turning circle we were camped next to, about 30 metres away. The same direction from where she heard the breathing come from. I grabbed my torch and got out to have a look but didn’t see or hear anything. The patch of scrub was about 10-15 metres in diameter and the torch is very bright so I was pretty confident nothing was there. I then went back to the tent and we both went to sleep.
The next morning I pressed her a little bit to try and understand what had made her so frightened. I asked if she thought it may have been a pig or a buffalo or something and then she hesitated a couple of seconds and said, “No. A yeti.”
Needless to say she now had my full attention but I kept my demeanour neutral and just prodded her a little to see what would come out without any influence from myself. I asked her if it was tall like me and straight away she shook her head and said no. She then held her hand about mid-torso to indicate height so I took it to be about 4 feet tall.
I then asked her to describe what she saw in detail and she gave me a perfect description of a yowie, albeit one of the smaller varieties. She said it was looking with intense curiosity at our tent and she got the impression it had been there a while and that it was “mature”.
I was pretty amazed to hear all of this from a Polish backpacker with absolutely no idea or concept of what a yowie was. I’d certainly never bought the subject up and it was only a week later that I told her I had an interest in the subject. She was actually very relieved because until then she didn’t think I believed her. The reason she used the word yeti was because it was the only word she knew to describe what she had seen.
Again, this is where things get a bit weird. When I pressed her on what she “saw” she told me she turned to look in the direction the breathing was coming from but only “saw” the creature in her mind. I know, it sounds flaky but that’s how she related her experience. She described how she was hit with this image of a yeti-like creature looking directly at her and it immediately made me think of other witness reports where they describe getting “zapped” with extremely strong impressions, visions and feelings.
I decided to go back and have a look around the patch of scrub to see if there was any indication that something had been there and stared by walking around the dirt turning circle. I hadn’t gone far when I spotted two very distinct footprints in the fine bulldust on top of the hard dirt road. By this time a couple of cars had been and gone and one print was vague but I managed to take a pretty good photo of the other one. I was in bit of a rush because other cars were now coming down the road and I didn’t have the good sense to place something next to it for scale. I did place my own foot next to the print at some stage and estimate it to be about 30cm long.
What really caught my attention was the shape and curve of the instep. As you can see in the photo, the big toe follows the curve of the instep and is angled out and away from the line of the foot. By comparison, most people’s toes will point in the direction of the foot. My own toes actually point in the other way (I wore pointy shoes as a kid) so I know this print definitely does not belong to me.
The other curious thing about this photo is that there does not appear to be much definition in the area where you would expect to see the rest of the toes. While the big toe and the rest of the print is clearly defined (you can see dermal ridges over the entire print) the remaining area is indistinct yet still appears as if the ground has been pressed smooth by something.
I should also point out that those diamond shapes and lines that surround the print are tyre tracks from vehicles the day before. I suppose it’s possible that wind (there wasn’t any) or a passing car (only 1 at maybe 10-20kmh) may have partially altered the definition of the print before I took the photo but if that were the case then I’d also expect to see a loss of definition in the dermal ridges which have remained quite clear.
All I can say for sure is that the print does not belong to me or my friend. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person with big toe at such an angle. I don’t consider myself a podiatrist by any means so if anyone can offer a rational interpretation for the print I found I’d really love to hear it.
As for my Polish friend, it was about a week later when I told her I had an interest in Yowies and explained to her that they were basically Australia’s version of a Yeti. She was somewhat relieved because her experience now had some sort of context and she understood why I was so interested in her account of what happened. It was also at this point that I showed her the photo I had taken and she was quite shaken after viewing it, I think because it somehow made her experience a lot more real to her. She then gave me a curious piece of advice and told me was that if I ever had another encounter I should not try to talk to it because “they do not communicate that way.”
My apologies if this account is a bit long but I just wanted to accurately relate the event as it happened. Also, I would have posted this earlier but had actually lost track of the photo until recently.
Anyway, that pretty much sums up the whole event as it happened and as I said at the start I really don’t know what to make of it. In summary, a Polish girl who heard breathing and saw a “yeti” (but didn’t see it) and a clear footprint was found in the dust which may belong to said “yeti” or a horribly disfigured barefoot camper.
I’m open to ideas on this one.
