Giants From the Dreamtime the Yowie In Myth And Reality

Lake Ballard, Kalgoorlie 1960

Three Jimbra's

During 1970 I interviewed an old fossicker from Adelaide who, about 1960, in the company of another mate had experienced a meeting with a Jimbra family that they would be most unlikely to forget. Andy Hoad and his mate Brett Taylor left their wives for a couple of days' prospecting out from Kalgoorlie where they all lived at the time. The men used a tin hut up in the Lake Ballard area to the north. Andy's story follows:

"We had just arrived, and unpacked our truck this particular weekend when we noticed a bad, rotting-type smell about the shed. No dead animal anywhere in sight, so we wondered what had caused the stink. "We went off later with our equipment to work a favourite location on a dried-up creek bank always good for gemstones there. Anyway, my mate soon got the feeling we were being watched.

He kept on looking over his shoulder, and soon even I got the same uneasy feeling. "There was a stand of scrub further along the creek and it was from here we suddenly heard voices-gutteral sounds is a better description. Looking over in that direction, we could see dark shapes moving in the tree cover. Thinking it was people, Brett called out 'who's there?', at which a seven-foot, dark brownish-haired, long-breasted female 'ape' emerged, standing in a stooped upright position, to be joined by a younger female of about six feet. then, to our further horror, a huge nine-foot male appeared.

The nearest creature you could compare them with would probably be the gorilla. "We had no firearms, only our picks and shovels for protection. regaining our composure, we kept the picks and ran back along the creek. Ahead of us were the sounds of crashing and screeching tin sheeting, and we knew something was happening to our hut. In the distance we could see another hairy gorilla-like monster, about 10 feet in height, pulling our roof and walls apart. The building was not all that sturdy so it was easy for the creature to dismantle most of it.

"We were not being pursued but hid in scrub, waiting for the chance to dash to the truck. The manlike 'ape' soon strode away and we made good our opportunity to escape. "Aborigines in Kalgoorlie later told us we should never have been there, for it was the territory of the Jimbra, huge hairy animal-men who have inhabited the land since the Dreamtime. You know, we never did go back there."