Many years ago (circa 1980) I was on a camping trip along the MacQuarie River in NSW (yep, same area as the black snake yarn) and had just driven in to the selected spot, left the others unpacking & setting up while I went off to collect firewood.

It had been raining all the previous night and the ground along the river bank (very very fine pebbles) was smoothed out and wet.  There was water pooled in the odd area that was depressed from the previous seasons high water levels and the world was washed shiney & new.  I had a few damp pieces of wood and had spotted some bigger stuff to pull out & leave in my wake so that I could drag them back on my return to the campsite.

Heading over to one of them, I noticed some verrry big, cats paw prints.  They were so fresh that not even a grain of sand had fallen into the holes the claws had made.  I could see where the animal had squatted back on it's long flat back lower legs to spring over one of these puddles of water, and where it had landed on the other side.  I can tell you that the hair on the back of my neck, in fact every hair on my head, back and arms, stood on end.  I've never felt such a strange kind of fear.  I KNEW I was being watched and my survival instincts said not to show fear, not to run and not to look around for it.  Somthing told me that if I had eye contact I'd be in trouble.

I think I even whistled a some stupid tune to convince the watcher that I wasn't in the least afraid.  LOL.  My heart was pounding in my throat and my BP must've been fair fit to blow a foofoo valve.  Oddly enough, I felt when the threat passed ... it was like the light of a torch that had been focused on my back had been diverted elsewhere.

When I got back to camp & told my b/f & the other two friends, I was white as a sheet and the shock had me shaking a bit.  We all went back together to look at the paw prints and all agreed that they could only be made by an extremely large cat.  We had no camera with us but as a marker so we didn't embellish the story, we laid a packet of cigarettes beside one of the front paw prints and the pads were easily an inch longer than the pack.  Then the claw holes in the sand were another approx half inch further out.  

That weekend, walking in the bush & kicking around looking for gold & eating blackberries, we came across several dead and 'skinned' rabbits.  It was entirely different to anything I'd seen before in the bush.

I am a firm believer in a population of big cats (not just big feral cats, but Big Cats) living clandestinely in this country.  I have seen the proof with my own eyes, as described above.

If Big Cats live out there and have been sighted but there's not been any substantive evidence to shut the naysayers up, why not Yowies?  I have an open mind about their existence ... and hope that if they are out there, they are never found by small minded mankind.

 BitB  

Found some conclusive evidence, of what I'm not certain.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mFtJ0Gmcl4&eurl=http://www.ausjeepoffroad.com/fo...

Oh my god!!! It's true...There is more than ONE Yowie idiot in the world.......

Grrr!!!

Well done OJ - absolute classic mate.....

Hey Mikel

That big cat theory is one that fascinates me. 

I recall as a kid all the stories of the Emmaville Panther.  If I remember correctly it was first described accurately by the local doctor who saw it on a road late one night.  You might recall I started a thread on it on here a while back.

Then there were the Victorian sightings of a large brown cat then later the sightings in South Australia.  The description of these were so similar to the American Cougar it isn't funny.



So yes I believe they are out there or were at least.

As for Yowies, I am still a sceptic as from what I have seen there still hasn't been a "proper" sighting of one and after a few hundred years of colonisation I do not believe that they can be there and not be seen or found.

Being from the bush and spending my entire life out and about, I agree that there are things that happen that are not easily explained. I have seen VERY large cats..... so on and so forth. The movie "The Blair Witch Project" was a bunch of kids running around the bush with a torch , it scared the crap out of millions. It does not matter what people say about your beliefs, stand by them, if people want to know more, they will ask you in a sincere manner. If they don't, then so be it. Its our nature to have a bit of fun and a dig at each other so don't take it personally. I do love to pull the P*ss.

That's my bit on the topic and a few others.

Stew