Loch Ness Monster's Aussie cousin pops up

Loch Ness Monster's Aussie cousin pops up

www.theaustralian.com.au

AN Australian cryptozoologist is convinced there is an aquatic beast related to the Loch Ness monster lurking in Sydney's Hawkesbury River.

In 1965, Rex Gilroy and his wife Heather began gathering information on a creature he believes still lives in the major waterway, community newspaper The Hornsby and Upper North Shore Advocate reports.

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Unfortunately it's not as grand as it sounds; he doesn't have any photographic evidence yet, but is hoping to get some pretty soon. I have to say I have never heard of a Sydney version of the loch ness monster with long neck and all. Certainly not with stories going back to the 1960's.

It's even more interesting that it matches local aboriginal folk lore. I wish him the best of luck in trying to get photos; he did some great work on the big cats living in the blue mountains.

www.theaustralian.com.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

This is very interesting and in Malcolm Smith's book 'Bunyips & Bigfoots - In Search of Australia's Mystery Animals' he devotes a whole chapter to this topic.

On page 61 I found this: "1976...a typical sea serpent appeared in the Brisbane Waters near the mouth of the Hawkesbury River in May that year. A married couple fishing 200 metres from shore saw the body of a long-necked animal swim close to their boat, a metre under water. When it raised its head a metre out of the water and continued to the open sea, they headed for shore. A few weeks later something similar was seen near Ettalong in the same area. A Woman living near the headwaters of the river watched for 15 minutes through binoculars as a dark shape moved upstream. It then raised its head at least 1.2m out of the water, and part of its back appeared."

Also the works of Dr Heuvelmans 'In The Wake of the Sea Serpents' catalogues 587 reports from 1636 to 1966 of which after eliminating obvious hoaxes, mistakes and vagues reports he was still left with 358 unexplained. He was able to classify them into 9 separate categories.