Apr 10

Encounter in Australia

A listener writes “Hi there Wes, I’ve been a huge fan of the show for sometime, I’ve always grown up with stories of experiences from family members.

My Dad is from a small rural town near Piliga in Australia and my family have all been farmers. I’ve had few small experiences myself while camping, such as wood knocks stones being thrown and being followed, but yesterday a friend and I have a rather confronting encounter while in the bush.

We had gone to an area wed never been before, as we both love hiking and our partners were busy so we thought we’d go out together since it was a nice Sunday afternoon to a new spot about an hour away.
The first area we went in a place called Strickland state forest near somersbey NSW was really dense, like thick jungle with swamps and a creek that ran through it lots of palms and cedars. We’d been walking a loop track and came to a pine area when we both felt we were being watched and suddenly although It was still a large branch fell not far up the ridge from us, so we left the area and decided to go onto another trail higher on the ridge after some lunch.

The top track was more open and we didn’t realize we had gone as far as we did but when the encounter happened we realized we were pretty much above where the branch fell. We walked through this bottle neck of two very large rock walls and I started feeling incredibly uncomfortable and right as I turned to my friend (I was in the lead) to say we should go back we both noticed two things down the hill. I was more focused on the main creature and I think she was more focused on another I could see further down in my peripherals. I could clearly see crouched in the thick ferns shoulders and a head and a face staring at us with reddish brown hair all over except the face, dark skin and a flat nose staring at us.

I absolutely froze and at this moment before I could say anything she also froze and we both agreed we needed to leave. We knew running was a bad idea so I took the lead and we Began back up the ridge. As we Began moving it was clear we were being paralleled, I tried to just remain calm and march forward while also trying to keep an eye on her and behind us, we are both only about 5ft and 50-60kg so we are pretty useless in a fight she had grabbed a stick and I was holding my camera (battery was flat) but hoping the weird device in my hand might be some deterrent. Just as we reached the rock and walls we had to pass through I heard her say in a panicked voice she saw one up ahead on our left (the other side of the others and higher on the ridge) after we made it out she told me she was convinced at that point something was going to jump out and grab us. In my head I knew we just had to remain calm and push past it because we had two large ones behind us.

We could see the trees being pulled back as something large and dark moved through them following us.
After a brisk maybe 10 minutes we finally made it to the Car park where we felt like they’d stopped following.

We had also found areas in the first area that she described “like something big had thrown a tantrum” huge pieces of thick bark in about 8ft pieces peeled off trees everything in the area broken and crushed and lots of small trees bent over into the ground or trees pushed across the creek.”

4 Responses to “Encounter in Australia”

Leave a Reply