Location: Brindabellas Ranges near CanberraAim: to investigate the area surrounding the location of the purported yowie footage of Steve Piper.
The area of the alleged footage of a yowie by Steve Piper is located close to the Cotter Dam outside of Canberra. It is a beautiful area and well known for it's yowie stories over the years. The place of the footage had grown over significantly with blackberry bush by the time I visited. It is dense bush on an out-of-the-way bush road. It is not easily negotiated on foot. It is also within 50 km of the area where I heard some ungodly wailing noises in the bush near Yarrangobilly / Talbingo in 1979. Hence my curiosity to visit the area.
The site of the footage is definitely very attractive - dense bush, lots of wilderness and no people. However, it is curious how the footage has completely diappeared and that the footage that did exist is very short and extremely inconclusive. There are some great inconsistencies in the footage. For example - why were only a few seconds shot when the creature was evidently walking away from the camera? Why did the footage stop when the shape went behind a tree? Anybody in that position would have filmed for as long as possible.
There was a story out around the time of the footage that it was a group of Uni students playing a prank on Mr Piper. However, their story does not match with the area. They claimed to have driven to the next hill then crossed by foot with a gorilla suit, to lie in waiting for Mr Piper to stop in precisely the right place to get footage. None of this is possible since there is no nearby location (the 'next hill') where one can park a car and walk to site of the footage. In addition, the terrain is almost impassible. They would also have to have had a million to one chance that Mr Piper would stop exactly where they wanted. The spot is a completely random spot on one stretch of road.
Of course, the whole thing could have been staged and not a trick ON Mr Piper but BY Mr Piper. This seems to be more likely. If anyone has better information, please email and tell me otherwise. If I have haplessly offended an innocent person, I apologise, but one must approach these things with extreme sceptisicm.
I camped the night down a valley within 1 km of Piper's spot, just off a trail from the main road that led down to a creek and arboretum. During the night, my tent was approached by something, but it sounded like a wombat. At about 1am, a group of 4WD "yahoos" drove past and proceeded to burn around the bush tracks for a few hours. I felt far more threatened by them than by "hairy, putrid-smelling ape-like man-like monsters from the bush"......(to paraphrase another famous yowie investigator.)
