The small town of Kilcoy has two claims to fame: it’s home to some of the best meat pies in Australia and it’s right in the middle of Yowie country. While the American Big Foot is the most well known humanoid cryptid, Australia has its very own overgrown, mythical primate living in the hinterlands of the South East Coast.

Known as the Wawee, Tjangara or the Yowie, Australia’s version of Big Foot has been featured in numerous stories from Indigenous tribes to early settlers across Australia. However, Kilcoy’s part in those stories is much more recent. It starts in 1979 when two local boys claimed to witness a three metre tall Yowie and attempted to shoot it. It took off, allegedly leaving behind a sulfurous smell. Plaster casts were supposedly taken of its footprints and the boys became local folklore.

Barely a year passed before a statue was erected to honor the local Yowie, although it’s anatomically correct family jewels caused quite a stir. Since then two more statues have taken its place as the statues erode in the hot Aussie sun. Although the latest 2018 version is far more PG, every year on Father’s Day, the locals attach a water balloon between its legs to reaffirm its manhood. 

There have been many more supposed sightings in the last 40 years around Kilcoy, with occasional claims of attacks coming from local Yowie Hunters who never quite seem to have the time to gather concrete evidence.