Mystery of the Mirreeulla

Insects hummed and chirruped way off in the brush around the peaceful waters of the Hawkesbury River as one Mr. Doug Bradbury and an unnamed friend of his pushed their oars through the quiet water beneath them. It was 1939, and with the Second World War coming around the corner it could've perhaps been the last time the men would get to fish in peace. However, of course they wouldn't get to fish in peace this time. They drifted along in their small rowboat when something terrifying happened. Suddenly - presumably throwing freezing water all over the horrified pair - an enormous dark shape surfaced from the water. It was a long neck tipped with a hideous serpentine head, and it rose 6 meters up above the water. Adrenaline surging through their bodies, they dropped their fishing equipment immediately and quickly rowed back to the nearby shore. Scrambling up onto the muddy banks, they turned back to get a better look at the prehistoric monstrosity. A thick, eel-like tail hung in the water behind the thing's giant body, and two sets of lengthy flippers paddled through the muddy depths, partially obscured by the waters of the lake. After this, it can be assumed that the panicked men beat a hasty retreat. They had just encountered the Hawkesbury River Monster.

## Rex and the River Beast

Rex Gilroy (born on the 9th of November 1943) is a famous Australian cryptozoologist who has written many books on various Fortean subjects such as the Bigfoot-like monster known as the Yowie, and a possible lost civilisation that he named Uru. Although he is renowned for sometimes *actually finding things* unlike other cryptozoologists, there is one critter that has almost completely eluded him. He refers to it as the Hawkesbury River Monster, and it is described as an enormous creature similar to the monster alleged to haunt Scotland's Loch Ness. Most witnesses concur that it is about 15 meters in total length, and all describe as having a humped back and a snake-like head atop a long neck. Rex Gilroy is convinced that it is a surviving plesiosaur.

Is this even remotely plausible? Well - plesiosaurs did indeed live in the seas around Australia throughout the Mesozoic (the era in which non-avian dinosaurs roamed the earth). The remains of the aforementioned long-necked aquatic reptiles have been found in an area called Lightning Ridge in New South Wales - which is the same state which now contains the Hawkesbury River. So theoretically, perhaps some of these prehistoric reptiles became trapped in the lake millions of years ago and somehow managed to survive mostly undetected for the thousands of years of human habitation of the area. However, this strikes me as extremely unlikely despite the monster sightings that have supposedly taken place in the area. Perhaps people are seeing some other animal that resembles a plesiosaur? Maybe an unknown species of marine mammal?

Rex and Heather Gilroy (the usual suspects again) discovered a 3,000 year old Aboriginal rock engraving at Brisbane Waters (near Gosford in New South Wales) which shows an animal extremely similar to an extinct plesiosaur. This entity is apparently referred to as the 'Mirreeula' in the local folklore, and so this name was given to the Hawkesbury River Monster as well.

The Mirreeula was seen in 1945, if one specific report from a man named John Nelson is to be believed. He and his friend Bob were out on a boat in the river when they spied a yacht a few hundred yards to the north of their position. There were about 12 people milling about on the little boat - and so it can be presumed that they all suddenly became monster witnesses when something odd surfaced in the water just 50 yards away from Nelson and Bob's boat. It was just east of where they had launched from, and it was said to be a hideous snake-like head, about 2.5ft long and 1.5ft wide. The creature stared at the men, and the head suddenly rocketed upwards on the end of a 2ft-thick neck - reaching about 10ft up into the sky. It had dark grey scales, but a yellowish underbelly. As the grotesque creature's body came into view, two large humps were revealed to be floating 2-3ft above the surface of the water, and about 20ft apart. Flippers were barely visible below the surface, but they contributed to a noticeable disturbance on the surface. A similar, but presumably bigger, disturbance could be seen behind the monster's body - assumed by the witnesses to be coming from the movements of a tail. John and Bob were able to watch the creature for about five minutes as it slowly looked around, seemingly not having any intention of harming them. Eventually Bob became nervous and suggested that the pair move their boat off towards the shore. However, this action ironically seemed to disturb the monster - which suddenly dove down into the dark water, giving the men a brief glimpse at its 15ft-long, paddle-like tail before disappearing. John and Bob could now see the people on the yacht moving about and screaming in fear after having obviously seen the titanic terror as well. Just like screaming is never a good idea in a *Jaws* movie, the people got what they'd put themselves in for when the critter's head resurfaced and moved towards them. However, this was seemingly only a mock charge - seeing as the monster vanished below the surface once it was about 50ft away from the boat. After waiting a while to see if the entity was actually gone this time, John and Bob quickly motored over to the yacht to talk to the crew about the creature they'd seen. Some of them had seen four flippers thrashing about below the surface, and they all agreed that the monster was between 40-50ft in length.

The next notable sighting would take place in the Lower Hawkesbury in 1949. A young couple were out on a romantic rowing-boat trip along the river when they caught sight of a bull on the shore about 300 yards away from them. It was drinking from a creek that flowed into the river, but as they were watching they also noticed a 3ft-long reptilian head emerging from the water. This head quickly rose up out of the water atop an '*at least*' 20ft-long neck, and a massive 30ft body emerged from the depths, with its humps floating roughly 3ft above the surface as it lunged towards the unsuspecting animal and dragged it into the water. Horrified, the girl screamed and the boy quickly rowed for the shore. The owner of the bull would later find blood and signs of a struggle on the shore. The bull had, of course, mysteriously vanished.

Some of the most notable recent sightings of the odd critter have taken place in the Summer of 1979, in which the monster was seen up close and personal on at least three occasions. The first of these recorded events features a woman named Judy Morgan as its central figure. She lives in Sydney, but at roughly 4pm on one fateful Sunday in May of 1979 she was perched atop a 50ft bank on the Syndey side of the Hawkesbury River watching water-skiers through her trusty binoculars. She was about 4 miles east of the Hawkesbury River Bridge, and when her beloved water-skiers passed out of her line of sight towards the bridge she suddenly spied a pair of 3ft-tall humps rising out of the water in the middle of the river. They were about 300ft away from the shore, apparently. From where Morgan was stood, she could '*clearly see*' two pairs of paddle-like flippers just below the surface, extending off several feet from the body. She could also see a long tail beneath the water, and this apparently rose up from the water after being submerged for about a minute before going back under. The monster's head hadn't yet emerged, but this would soon change when a thick reptilian neck rose out of the water several feet above the surface. Morgan put the creature's length at a tentative measurement of 40ft. It is unknown what happened after this, but it can be presumed that the submerged once more and vanished from sight.

Another of these incidents took place in August of that year, and involved one Ms. Rosemary Turner - a young bushwalker on a hike on the Sydney side of the wide river. It was around 3pm, and she decided to take a brief break from her walk. She was just a few kilometers west of the Hawkesbury River Bridge - and the waters were calm and peaceful. As is seemingly often the case, however, this veneer of peace would soon be shattered when an enormous black form rose from the depths - its slimy, scaly humps rising 2ft above the surface and its back being roughly 20ft long. Two lengthy flippers could apparently be seen moving just below the surface, and a serpentine head emerged about 15ft away from the black body of the creature. The head and neck rose 4ft above the water, and seemed to swing from side to side as the monster floated there in the middle of the lake, seemingly facing in an east-west position. The vague outline of a tail was visible '*some feet east*' of the thing's body. Gobsmacked at what she was seeing, Rosemary quickly fumbled for her binoculars - allowing her to closely observe the critter's head. She described it as being 2ft long, and as resembling that of a snake. It was '*ugly*'. She was utterly petrified by the sight - but the sight didn't last for long. The monster quickly sunk below the surface, with its tail emerging from the water and flipping as the creature dove down into the blackness, leaving a great wake in the water. Rosemary later guessed that the monster must have been between 45-50ft in total length.

The Broken Bay estuary is situated on the coast of New South Wales near Pittwater, and it was where George and Jan Cayley were living in a houseboat in mid-1979. Rain was pouring down outside early one morning, and the Cayley couple were lying together in bed, presumably just waiting for the storm to pass, when they suddenly felt their home being lifted out of the water. Their bed and furniture were thrown across the room into a heap of debris on one side of the room as the boat was tipped to one side by an unseen force. With a massive crash, the vessel splashed back down onto the surface, righting itself after the terrifying ordeal. Scrambling out of the tangled mess of destroyed furniture, the couple found that their beloved home looked as if a tornado had ripped through it. They decided to climb out onto the deck of the boat, hoping to confront the pilot of the boat which must have caused the carnage. However - they were mortified to see an enormous, long-necked monstrosity paddling away from the disaster site and towards the opposite side of the bay before submerging and vanishing from sight. They were able to recruit a group of friends to help them clear up the destroyed remains of their bedroom, and these people apparently had no problem believing their story. This was just something that sometimes happened around that area...

## A Modern Expedition... and Photographic Evidence?

Julie Miller and Grant Osborn - a pair of paranormal investigators and former producers of the now-cancelled television show *Ghost Hunt* - decided to set up base camp at the village of Wisemans Ferry, which is situated at the point where the Hawkesbury River splits into two tributaries, moving northwest towards the MacDonald River and southeast towards Winsdor - a larger town around which the monster has also supposedly been seen according to Rex Gilroy, in whose footsteps Miller and Osborn were now following. Worryingly, nobody had even heard of the monster in Wisemans Ferry. This investigation likely took place some time shortly before 2010, which is when they published their findings in the book which has since become the main source for this article. They interrogated potential witnesses on both sides of the river, but nobody had seen anything even remotely dinosaurian - not even the operators of the Wisemans Ferry cable ferry, who spend their long days travelling backwards and forwards across the river. The plucky pair were now losing hope as they headed back to Wisemans Ferry.

On the way back, they decided to stop on the verge of a gentle bend in the road to take some photographs of the dynamic Hawkesbury River vista ahead of them. By random chance, two cyclists pulled in for a rest on that same verge - and the investigators struck up a conversation, which eventually turned to discussing their seemingly quixotic quest. In what might be perceived as an unfeasibly lucky twist of fate, the cyclists informed the ailing cryptozoologists that they had spoken to some campers earlier that day who had claimed that they'd '*seen a dinosaur*'. Hearts presumably jumping out their chests, Miller and Osborn followed the directions given by the cyclists to a cluster of dome-shaped tents which had been erected around a verdant and shrub-covered floodplain area.

The three campers requested anonymity (sorry Theo), but were happy to share their bizarre story with the ecstatic investigators. Two nights previously, they had been camping a little further down the river. It was a windy night, and they were all asleep in their tents when one of them heard an odd splashing sound coming from the river. He stuck his head out of his tent and listened closer, and was able to hear the strange sound again - but was unfortunately unable to see anything on account of the stygian blackness of the night around them. Fumbling around in his tent for his torch, he failed to find his desired instrument but was instead able to grab his camera. He reemerged from the tent and took a shot out into the darkness - with the white flash of the camera illuminating the surrounding area. A chill scuttled up his spine as he saw '*something tall*' which seemed to be moving among the trees on the riverbank. Of course, he considered that the weird object might've just been a moving tree, but he could still hear the nebulous splashing. At this point, the commotion had awoken his two friends - whom he desperately ordered to grab a torch. They did so, but the pale beam of light revealed nothing but trees. They wandered to the bank of the river and were once again predictably unable to spy anything unusual. Now presumably facing ridicule, the camper decided to check his photographs. The snapshot he had taken through the darkness minutes previously revealed something disturbing. So disturbing, in fact, that the campers immediately relocated their tents further up river to where they had been found by Miller and Osborn.

The photograph showed a slender shape resembling a monstrous animal with two humps atop its back. It had a curved neck tipped with what seemed to be a rounded head. The underside of the creature's neck and throat seemed to be lighter than its back, which was said to be dark brown in colouration - much like the trees on the bank. While Miller and Osborn felt that perhaps the photograph only contained a floating tree branch that just happened to look like a monster, they couldn't shake the feeling of being mystified. The campers were extremely shaken by whatever it was, anyway - and many others have been terrified by the same reptilian visage in the river for perhaps thousands of years...

## Sources

'Australia's Loch Ness Monster?' on *Cryptozoo-oscity.blogspot.com*

'Hawkesbury River Monster Sightings' on *Pedestrian.tv*

'Research of Australian Reptilian Water Monsters' on *Mysteriousaustralia.com*

'Something is Out There' by Julie Osborn and Grant Miller