By Tania Poole - from the CFZ Australia, now living in the wilds of a Yorkshire valley...
Apparently, during the night, here in Woolfardisworthy, a leopard
was heard calling nearby! Jon McGowan, a large cat expert and hunter, heard it
at about 5am, while he camped by the local Community Centre. Jon has heard many
large cats before, so he should know. Yes, all manner of weird things come to
the Weird Weekend, even cryptids like out-of-place leopards.
First of the day was Richard Muirhead’s ‘The Flying Snakes
of Namibia’ where he looked into old stories from the 1950s where someone saw a
flying snake – or thought they did. Since then and in many areas of this south
western part of Africa, people who see lights in the sky at night, don’t say
it’s a UFO like we would, but that it’s a flying snake with glowing lights on its
head.
Lars Thomas gave us a run down on the cryptids of Denmark,
ranging from bugs, beetles, wolves, and chipmunks, to trolls, hominids and lake
monsters. Lars not only reads a lot, and travels to see location of sightings, but he uses the microscope
to discover what is out there – and has tested many hairs under a microscope,
finding leopards, out-of-place cats, hominids, and even a platypus hair…from
New Zealand. The old stories in Denmark of hominids and hairy creatures are
found in many old documents from wooden carvings to old manuscripts. He also
knows of a colony of Siberian Chipmunks that live in forests in Denmark, but is
uncertain how they got there. The questions at the end even involved Trolls,
and it was clear to Lars and many others that questions were asked in relation
to the ‘Troll Hunter’ movie, released in 2011.
Richard Freeman spoke about the Sumatra expedition of 2011 –
so far the largest group to go on an expedition, splitting 3 teams up to cover
more ground to try and see the Orang-Pendek. Even our fair Rebecca Lang was
mentioned, as she and Mike Williams were two of the explorers. There was no
success in seeing the cryptid this time round, like the sighting in 2009, but
Richard still has hopes to see something one day and tick this off as ‘found’
for the CFZ.
Lars and Jon teamed up to talk about the nature walk they
took people on the grounds of the community centre, and Lars came back with
photos of several bugs and flies – including over a dozen types of hover fly.
Ronan Coghlan, the CFZ’s ever hilarious trickster talked
about Sinbad the sailor, and the cryptids he had encountered. This re-introduced us
to creatures like the Roc, and the ‘Old Man of the Sea’ – from Sumatra and
probably like our Orang-Pendek or even the Flores dwarf.
Jon ended the Weird Weekend by remembering those lost to us
this year – Jeanett Thomas, the late wife of Lars, and Lionel Beer’s long term partner Joy who passed away this week. And there was acknowledgment of a CFZ birth
and a wedding too.
The dinner was held in the hall this year, with a wonderful
meal presented to us by the lovely ladies of the community centre, and we all
ended the night eating a CFZ cake too. After dinner, a small few of us stayed
behind and watched ‘Occasional Monsters’ a British film that, I think, was inspired by
Nick Redfern’s book ‘Three Men seeking Monsters.’
Due to the excitement about possibly having a leopard
nearby, Max Blake, Jon McGowan, Darren Naish, and Mark North appeared to walk
away from the Community Centre equipt with headlights, torches and wet weather
gear, into the dark fields of the Devon countryside in search of it. The rest
of us (now an even smaller group) listened to Silas Hawkins read out a third story
of Richard Freeman’s book ‘Green Unpleasant Land’ – this one a rather creepy
one about the Bodmin little people. Richard is an excellent writer of the
macabre and I recommend this book, and not just to those interested in forteana, but those who love ghost stories.
This ended the XIIIth Weird Weekend for 2012, and as a
representative of the Australian CFZ gang, I was honoured to be there (It
certainly helps when you are currently living in Yorkshire). Thanks to Jon and
Corinna Downes, and all other members of the CFZ that helped me out this
weekend. And thanks to Joe Thomas who taught me how to say Haribo properly! Those
of you who have not been to a Weird Weekend, make an effort, DON’T MISS IT!
Yes we heard the same noise a few hours before on our camp site.
ReplyDeleteJon was telling us that he had heard a Leopard, coming from the direction of Hartlands at around 5am that morning.
His first thought was that it may have been a recording and that someone was winding him up for a joke, until we had mentioned that we had also heard a strange sound, just like the one he had just demonstrated to us early Sunday morning at about 12.30-1am, which made the dogs on the site restless and started barking and whining.
He then told us that there was a sighting in that area a few years back of a big cat and cub, whereas the camp owner had to ask her guests to move to a safer area of the site.
This was fantastic, as I am very interested in Big Cat.
It was great meeting you Tania and hope to see you again next year