Bania National Park – Yowie Sighting QLD 2021

Late one afternoon In October 2021, Peter Kemp was checking some fence lines on a property near the edge of the Bania National Park in Queensland when he had an extraordinary Yowie encounter. This is Peter’s account of the creature and its behaviour he witnessed..

I had been doing some fence and weed survey on a property this afternoon and had come to a section where the fence ran up over a small ridgeline. I had stopped on my motorbike to look at some damage to one of the old posts and broken wire and decided to walk the fence line a little to see where the wire had been broken. My faithful Kelpie, (Sulu), had gone up ahead of me and I could see him standing still and looking intently over the ridge. As I got to the top of the ridgeline, I became aware of some movement down the hill on the other side of us. This didn’t alarm me in any way as cattle roamed freely around here and I thought it would be this making the noises in the bush.

Unable to see clearly, I had to go over the ridgeline and down the hill a little. As I stood amongst the trees looking down the hill, I could see that whatever was making the noises was not cattle but someone walking around towards the bottom of the ridge. I thought to myself it must be a neighbour as this area is a long way from where anyone that didn’t know the area would be.

I began to move through the trees down the hill a little further when it became clear to me that something was not right and what I was looking at was not a person at all, it was on two feet but as I watched I could see the figure was very huge and covered in very dark brown or black hair except for its face which was a dark tan colour. At this point, I froze behind a tree, completely stunned, as I realized the enormous size of the creature both in height and mass. This thing would have had to be about 9ft tall, massively thick, and wide and I now contemplated what would happen if it became aware that I was watching it. My mind was racing between thoughts at this point. How do I get back over the ridge without making a noise… What is this creature… I hope my dog doesn’t decide to investigate or bark… I feel like I’m in danger… Where do I run if it sees me…. I wish I had my rifle. All these thoughts and more kept popping into my head. I quickly looked back to see where my dog was and he had not moved an inch from when I walked past him and down the hill and he stood at attention and strangely silent, peering down the hill towards the figure moving in the bushes.  

I continued to watch this creature do the strangest thing. It was walking back and forth between several burnt-out trees and hugging each tree, pushing the side of its head against the tree. What the hell is it doing I asked myself as I watched in disbelief as the creature walked to the next tree and wrapped its huge hairy arms totally around the tree stump. At one point it stopped this behaviour and stood totally motionless as if it was sniffing the air or listening for something. I became even more anxious when this happened as I thought it may have smelt me or my dog even though it wasn’t facing my direction. As it stood amongst the trees, I got a good look at its entire body from the ground up and could see it was covered head to toe with dark hair except for its face and hands. I could see its body was muscular and so thick. Its muscular arms were very very long. Too long for its body, I thought to myself and its hands looked so large that I’m sure it would have been able to squeeze a basketball flat with one hand.

It suddenly went back to its tree-hugging behaviour and in an instant as it hugged the tree it partially squatted and heaved the dead trunk clean from the ground, pulling out a huge root ball. It smashed the trunk to the ground making an incredible thud. This incredible feat scared me so much I turned and ran for my life back up and over the ridge from where I came. My dog, seeing my distress, ran with me back down the hill to my motorbike where I made an incredibly fast exit out of the area and back to the farm.

I went back out to the area with some friends a few days later. We found the remains of the burnt-out tree that the creature had smashed on the ground and could see it had been torn apart from one end to the other. After finding this I concluded that what I had watched was the creature looking for animals or birds inside the tree stumps and the strange behaviour of it hugging the tree was it listening for any signs of movement or sounds.

There have been no signs of the creature in the ensuing months, but I don’t go around the property unarmed anymore. 

An incredible sighting report from Peter and don’t forget If you see something you think is Yowie related, say something and get in touch with us. Yowie reports can be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and your privacy will always be respected.