Donnelly's Castle - Pozieres NP
Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2020 7:44 pm
Hi all,
Today we visited Donnelly's Castle on a recommendation for a school holiday activity. Part of the recommendation was to "Try to find the Yowie". I got the impression it was a constructed castle maze so decided to head out.
I arrived with just my daughter mid afternoon. It was an entirely natural structure of massive granite rocks, collapsed in places to form crevasses and open caves. Really cool place.
I had a slight sense of unease walking up there, but I heard voices and obviously there were other people there. We started from the western side and came in, down to a great big painting of a yowie. "Yowies have been hanging around here for centuries". Cool. My daughter then became fixated on finding a yowie... Great.
We popped out on the southern/south-eastern end and all felt fine. There was a broken tree but the area had copped 40km/hr winds a few days back so I assume it had a fairly boring explanation. Area felt fine. Then went back into the caves and popped out at the top. Unease returning, and daughter nagging to try and find a yowie. One path I looked at seemed fine, while the one she was wanting to go down I felt really uneasy about.
Anyway, we went down, popped out at a bit of a plateau boxed in by really thick bush.
Ive felt watched in the past and it has felt like it's coming from a single direction. This felt really uneasy and I was constantly turning around like in a bad movie - not panicking but just uneasy.
Photo from top plateau: We moved along and back through the rocks and to the car with nothing dodgy happening.
I couldn't find any research into the area, but there are a lot of pockets of state forest around. Was I spooked by the painting? Probably - but the SE section felt fine. Similarly Girraween a couple of days ago and a lot more remote, felt totally fine.
Interesting about the Yowie painting anyway.
Today we visited Donnelly's Castle on a recommendation for a school holiday activity. Part of the recommendation was to "Try to find the Yowie". I got the impression it was a constructed castle maze so decided to head out.
I arrived with just my daughter mid afternoon. It was an entirely natural structure of massive granite rocks, collapsed in places to form crevasses and open caves. Really cool place.
I had a slight sense of unease walking up there, but I heard voices and obviously there were other people there. We started from the western side and came in, down to a great big painting of a yowie. "Yowies have been hanging around here for centuries". Cool. My daughter then became fixated on finding a yowie... Great.
We popped out on the southern/south-eastern end and all felt fine. There was a broken tree but the area had copped 40km/hr winds a few days back so I assume it had a fairly boring explanation. Area felt fine. Then went back into the caves and popped out at the top. Unease returning, and daughter nagging to try and find a yowie. One path I looked at seemed fine, while the one she was wanting to go down I felt really uneasy about.
Anyway, we went down, popped out at a bit of a plateau boxed in by really thick bush.
Ive felt watched in the past and it has felt like it's coming from a single direction. This felt really uneasy and I was constantly turning around like in a bad movie - not panicking but just uneasy.
Photo from top plateau: We moved along and back through the rocks and to the car with nothing dodgy happening.
I couldn't find any research into the area, but there are a lot of pockets of state forest around. Was I spooked by the painting? Probably - but the SE section felt fine. Similarly Girraween a couple of days ago and a lot more remote, felt totally fine.
Interesting about the Yowie painting anyway.