A Sunshine Coast man who calls himself a yowie tracker claims sightings of the eight-foot shaggy Australian equivalent of the American bigfoot are on the rise.
Recalling local reports, Elimbah’s Ron Quinton said when it comes to encounters with the massive, hairy, ape-like creatures, seeing really is believing.
The Australia Post worker said most sighting reports were around the Beerwah and Mapleton National Parks, Glass House Mountains and Yandina, Wappa Dam, Kenilworth, Gympie and Wolvi areas.
Mr Quinton said online forums were allowing witnesses to feel safe enough to share their stories.
He said the two most common types of yowie sightings around the region were the “big fellas” and a smaller, three to four foot version.
They were all described as girthy with big feet and shaggy or short hair.
“The small ones are fast, even the big ones, the way they move through the bush is phenomenal,” he said.
“Most of the big fella’s temperaments are unpredictable… they are more curious than anything.
“They will come in close and check you out – you don’t find them, they find you.
“Believe me these things are out there.”
With roots stretching back to Indigenous folklore, there have been witness claims of sightings and encounters with the hairy, mythical human-like beast stalking the Australian wilderness for hundreds of years.
After having “quite a few strange experiences” stemming back to the 80s, Mr Quinton decided to start his Facebook group Sunshine Coast Yowie Trackers with his friend Nigel Francis about three years ago.
The group began with about 50 members and now sits at 2.6K members and rising.
“Now it’s just out of control, over the last year we have just been getting smashed with people wanting to join,” he said.
“It’s a legitimate research group not just an internet group.
“We are not hunting them, we are researching them and tracking or exploring them. There’s been that many yowie reports around the coast.
“We try to clear out the trolls really quick because it stops people coming forward with their stories.”
Occasionally Mr Quinton and a small group go out exploring areas where they have been reported sightings.
“You need people you are going to trust because, if you have encounters, you don’t know how people are going to react,” he said.
“I won’t go out there with less than three people.”
While he has experienced being stalked and seeing “eyeshine” (when its eyes glow red and white), Mr Quinton said he’d seen two up close and personal.
“I was walking down a track in the Mapleton State Forest and I could hear something in the thick bush to my left beside me grunting,” he said.
“It was coming from someone or something with a large lung capacity.
“I thought maybe it was sitting there watching me, it started following me for about 20 yards, then I thought ‘no this isn’t right’ and left.”
He shared another wild encounter while on a night-tracking mission in the D’Aguilar National Park, Mt Mee, about four years ago.
“The guy in front turned to his right because two big rocks dropped from a tree into the bush beside him,” he said.
“Then it appeared about 20 yards in front of us.
“He was a light grey and about seven to eight foot giant, his head sat on his shoulders, he had no neck.”
“The girth of his chest and stomach on him was enormous, he wouldn’t have fit through a normal door, at a guess he would have weighed around 300kgs. Then he disappeared across the track.”
But Mr Quinton’s scariest experience was in the Mapleton National Park.
“Me and a friend had five surrounding us,” he said.
“I was very concerned – all we could see was their eye shine in the pitch black – we could hear them shuffling closer and closer.
“Then they disappeared.”
