NSW - Woodenbong - My Trip to Woodenbong
From Mark Crewe from Sydney. - My Trip to Woodenbong
From: Mark Crewe
About 12 years ago I took a trip to
Woodenbong on the Northern Rivers of NSW with my girlfriend at the
time. I grew up in the town but moved to Sydney in 83 but enjoyed going
back to visit old friends and family. When I arrived at Kyogle we
decided to pop into the pub to have a drink and maybe bump into some
mates. Well who should be there but my brother whom I hadn't seen for a
year or so and he had previously arranged to meet another of my
brothers there that afternoon. So we decided it would be a good idea to
get together and have a meal. After dinner we decided to carry on our
reunion at a more appropriate place so we grabbed some food and beers
and drove a short way out of town towards Woodenbong along the
Summerland Way to a side road which led to a rest area by a creek.
Carrying a 2 man tent and a couple of sleeping bags was always standard
practice back then because you never knew where you might end up
sleeping the night. We set up our tents and proceeded to go out and
collect some firewood to build a small fire. We ended up with enough
for a quite spectacular bonfire to sit around and reminisce the night
away telling old stories of Yowie sightings to scare the girls a bit
and basically have a good old time. We kept enough firewood to build a
small fire the next day for breakfast and eventually went to bed.
During the night a small Possum came down and was nibbling at
some food we had left over from our party and I pretty much took no
notice. A little later I had to go to the loo so I unzipped the tent to
go out. My hand was right by the zipper so my first movement was
grabbing the zipper and zzzzip.
I didn't know at the time but my girlfriend was
sitting at the back of the tent in terror of the noises she was hearing
outside the tent so when I unzipped she panicked at the thought of a
Yowie coming to eat us, stood up (can't do that in a 2 man tent) and
ran screaming through the back of the tent. The rest of the holiday
was quite enjoyable and I have a lovely memory of my tent exploding in
the middle of the night, but I will never again tell stories of fierce
creatures to city people while camping on a lonely and isolated road in
the middle of the sticks.
Mark Crewe
For more information on the Yowie check out the Kilcoy site
which has some detailed, if questionable, information on this
fictitious creature. Editor
We welcome your comments, advice, suggestions, recommendations and even your horror stories. Every story in Travellers Tales has been carefully checked. There are, as far as we can determine, no attempts at free publicity from proprietors masquerading as happy travelers.
If you have a tale to tell send us an email and we'll let others know about your experiences.
