ACTUALLY I think it was an old dead steer sticking out of the mud in Wingecarribee Swamp when I was poking around out there last week, but that wouldn’t have made much of a story would it?
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ASK any old-timer from Burrawang, Kangaloon or Robertson and they will tell you about bunyips in the Wingecarribee Swamp.
Maybe we don’t hear so much about this local phenomenon these days after the dramatic collapse of the peat bog one dark wet August night in 1998. Heavy rains cut loose a mining dredge, ripping a huge swathe through to the reservoir to decimate the largest peat swamp on the Australian mainland and ruin the old bunyip habitat.
But having said that, there are plenty of locals convinced the bunyip is still out there among those boggy grasses, growing large on a regular diet of frogs, snakes, crayfish and eels.
AN OLD farmer told me he has regularly heard the bunyip over the years, describing the booming noise as sounding a bit like a bull, but different.
Others have described the sound as a deep groaning u-umph, u-umph.
Some say the bunyip roars up to five times in succession before drawing its breath with a really deep intake of air.
ONE early account suggested visitors to the swamp “could see, in imagination, a great amphibious animal making its annual migration along this airless midnight channel until it reared its prehistoric form from the cavernous depths of its watery lair once more, to bask in the sun and nightly roar its exultation to the world.”
A 1927 REPORT claimed that, “a party of men who lived by means of their skill at shooting went out with dogs in an endeavour to secure this animal.
They returned terrified and related that they came upon the thing basking in the sun, on the side of a hole supposed to be bottomless, situated about the centre of the swamp; and at their approach, the creature, which they stated to approximate the size of a two-year-old steer, and which appeared to possess two short, broad fins or flippers, and in colour was a dirty white or very light grey, took fright and plunged into the hole. This description gave rise to the idea that it was a kind of fresh-water seal. The dogs ran away, and so did the men.”
DURING the construction of the Robertson to Moss Vale train line, a camp was established near the Wingecarribee Swamp.
It was reported at the time, “that the workers fled in terror at the strange noises coming from the swamp, which were unlike anything they had heard before, and it was believed to be a bunyip.”
THERE is some rich Aboriginal folklore surrounding these noisy monsters they call Debil Debil lurking in billabongs and swamps, emerging on moonlight nights with their eerie calls to eat any humans (particularly women) wandering into their patch.
I am told that back in the day the women of Burrawang hated the Bunyip in Wingecarribee Swamp and this dislike had nothing to do with fear of being eaten.
It seems the local men (unbeknown to the women) had a cask of overproof rum delivered from Kiama twice a week and would tell their wives they were going out to catch the bunyip.
When they stumbled home half cut they stank more of rum than bunyip, so the women eventually put an end to these nocturnal hunting parties.
However the rum became known as a “drop of bunyip” and was asked for in the Burrawang Pub for years.
GRACE was fed up with Dudley coming home drunk from his bunyip hunts in the Wingecarribee Swamp so she hired a devil’s costume to give him a fright.
As he staggered up the driveway after midnight, she jumped out of the darkness in front of him.
“Bloody hell,” slurred Dudley, “who the hell are you?”
“Satan,” snapped Grace, hoping to scare him off the grog for good.
“I’ll be buggered,” said Dudley, having a closer look.
“I think I might have married your sister.”
SO ARE there still bunyips living in the Wingecarribee Swamp?
To get the answer I asked a well known Burrawang farmer yesterday.
“Of course there are mate,” he said with great conviction.
“Grab a bottle of rum and we’ll go out there on Friday night and I’ll show you where they live.”
I’ll let you know next week if we find one.