This is a story that happened to one of my best friends and I. Thinking back now we both can not believe that we ended up in such a ridiculous situation, especially one that could have ended so horribly wrong. To this day it still confuses and creeps us out.
It began as an absolutely beautiful day on August 23rd 2015 in Perth, Western Australia. My friend (let’s call her Charlie) is a photographer and wanted to take sunset shots at a place called Busselton. Busselton is a sea-side town two hours drive south of Perth that is mostly known for its extremely long jetty (it stretches roughly two kilometres or 1.2 miles). We would spend the day there, enjoying some sun, taking some snaps. Which is what we proceeded to do. We walked the full jetty and took lots of photos.
Once it got dark we went to the restaurant by the beach and had a very unsatisfying and expensive meal (albeit an incredible view). Charlie was so unhappy with her meal she decided to drive to a nearby KFC and order some chips. At this stage it was 7:15pm, I was her navigation using Google Maps and we were ready for the drive home.
In the confusion of figuring out the way back and putting music on we started heading in the wrong direction into a semi suburban/blue collar business area.
“Nah, dude I think you’re heading in the opposite direction, you need to go back.”
“Okay, which road can I take that leads me back to the main traffic lights?”
I zoomed in on the dot that represented our car in the app and saw a small road that could shortcut us back the right way.
“Take a hard left onto this road ahead.”
Charlie turned the car around on what began as a normal road. According to Google Maps the road went straight and joined up with another.
Within about 30 metres the normal road lost its middle white line and we just thought it was a sneaky old town road and continued. Then it wasn’t a smooth road anymore, it was dirt.
“Ah…okay that’s weird,” I say looking forward into darkness.
“This doesn’t seem right, maybe we turned too early.”
We passed a partially mangled gate and fence.
“We might be going through someone’s property…”
“Oh well, fuck it. We’ve committed to this now!” Charlie declares, increasing her speed a little.
“Ha ha ha, well it say’s we should see another road soon.”
The car bounced up a little as it rolled over the uneven track. This car was definitely not designed for this. We bounced up even higher to the point where we came a bit out of our seats and that is when Charlie slammed the breaks.
“Okay, this is definitely not right.”
We were in front of a large bush and we could only see trees, a fence and open land surrounding us.
“Yeah, just turn around here and we’ll go back.”
As Charlie turned a hard right, we noticed the car was almost about to go into a huge puddle of water. It was basically a pond. We nervously laugh a little at how crazy it would have been to drive straight into that.
We were now facing the way we came and this time we see what we were driving over.
There were two tracks forged by four wheel drives carved into the mud. It was so deep there was water in some parts.
“I don’t know which one to go on, I’ve never driven in these before,” she admits, a little tentative to go.
“You’ll be fine. Just try and stay in the lines and go quickly,” I stupidly attempt to calm her when really I know fuck all about it too.
“I’m really worried we’ll get bogged.”
She floors it and tries to go back on the exact same track on the right side. However, the way the track was formed it forced her car over onto the left track and before we knew it we were stuck.
We looked at each other in disbelief. She kept revving the engine but we were going nowhere.
“Oh fucking shit,” I utter.
Charlie is shaking her head with a slight smile out of frustration, “I knew this would happen, dammit.”
We sat in silence for a moment. It was the first time we noticed how quiet it was in this strange area. The only lights we could see were at the proper road at least 100 metres ahead but they looked miles away.
We get out to investigate just how badly stuck we are. As I opened my door I almost put my foot into a giant puddle of water. It turns out the front left wheel was completely submerged.
At this point I was freaking out a bit. One minute we were on our way home, cut to being in the middle of a swamp paddock…that may or may not be abandoned. I had no experience in these situations. I felt isolated and scared anyone could come along.
Especially because we were both avid horror movie watchers. We loved to make fun of stupid people and the wrong choices they make that lead to their eventual demise. We had now become those people. Two young girls alone and stuck.
“How the fuck did Google Maps lead us here!”
“Okay, we need to create a flat surface the wheel can roll over. Get some branches and sticks and wedge them under the tyre,” Charlie acts swiftly and calmly in the situation. Charlie has always had a knack for dealing with intense and odd circumstances. She has some of the best stories because she has the worst luck and seems to be a magnet for trouble.
We wandered away from the car, grabbing at anything we could, being slightly weary of spiders. It took us some time to decide which way to wedge the sticks and whether she would reverse or drive forwards. We got covered in mud and I even tried pushing the car. At one point we thought the car would not start. Basically it was a whole hour of achieving nothing.
We regrouped in the car. Charlie eating the now cold KFC chips. Everything became eerier when there was silence. At least when we were out of the car we were busy and distracted. Both of our phones were on low battery due to using them all day. Charlie could luckily charge hers on the car battery.
“We could walk and find a hotel…” suggests Charlie.
“There is no way I’m walking at this time of night, perhaps we could get someone to come pick us up?”
“That would take way too long. Do you really want to wait here?”
“We could call the police? Tell them our situation and they could drive us to a hotel?”
“We could, but I’m afraid they will breath test me,” Charlie had one cocktail at dinner.
“There is no RAC here as well.” (A company that comes out to help broken down cars).
“How the fuck did we get here!”
“I really don’t know.”
We were not in mortal peril but we expected to be on our way home an hour ago. Charlie finally decided to look up local tow truck services and found a contact number. She spoke to a woman who directed the call to a man who could help us out. Thank the heavens somebody locally was working. He asked us to send a screen shot of our location because we could not properly explain given what Google Maps was displaying. It was 8:30pm when the man said he would be on his way.
I noticed also in the area was a local gun shop. Just what we needed! We were still on edge. Who knew what this man could be like. What if hearing the news there was two girls stranded he could call up his buddies and bring them along too and have a jolly good time with us? Like I said, we felt vulnerable.
We sat with no lights on to conserve power. The only sound was chirping insects but even they were very faint. Then something very unexpected and alarming happened.
We were both in the front of the car, chatting to each other but gazing out into the night. You could not see much but your eyes do adjust a little so you can make out silhouettes. Out of the corner of our eyes a large figure crossed from the far right into a bush that was still to the right but closer. It moved very fast.
I felt my blood turn cold.
“Did you see that?” Charlie asked.
“Yep.”
“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck,” she began to panic a little.
“Dude, it’s okay. We are near a paddock it could be a sheep, or I bet it was a kangaroo.”
We made no sound but heard no sound back.
“Maybe, but I swear to god it was too tall to be any of those.”
She was right. What we both saw was a figure at least the size of a person. I was spooked but knew the tow-truck man would be coming soon and that there must be a rational explanation. I kept suggesting things it could be to relax her. You could tell she was really tense though. She saw the shadow again, cross over to the left hand side.
“Did you see that!”
“No, where?”
“It moved over there. I’m going to turn the lights on.”
The head lights came on, but we saw nothing.
She wanted to keep them on for a little bit. Mentioning she had a bike rack in her backseat she could use as a weapon if need be. As she was looking away I saw a shadow move in front of the lights. I did not see anything in particular but the lights went off and on as if something crawled in front of the car. At this point I was praying for the tow-truck man to appear. We turned the lights off again, afraid of attracting something to us. But I think mostly scared of seeing something else.
She told me she was slightly worried it was some sort of entity. She explained that all her bad luck seemed to be getting progressively worse. She imagined it as having a physical manifestation, like a demon, that was slowly coming to get her. I was more worried it was a crazy psychopathic serial killer, but you know either is not a great choice.
It seemed like forever but finally we saw a truck pull up at the end of the dirt road. Hesitantly, we turned the lights on, hoping nothing would be standing nearby. He came closer and stopped right before the road got muddy. He got out of the truck, thankfully, alone. A part of us was worried about the creepy shadow killing him in front of our eyes but we felt closer to freedom and had to get out of the car as well.
Turns out he was a lovely man. He quickly assessed our car (we were apparently so badly bogged we could never have escaped without being towed). We apologised for the late hour but he said he has been in worse situations. Apparently local teenagers are constantly getting bogged on the beach drunk at midnight.
He hooked our car up and HALLELUJAH our car was free after Charlie expertly steered us out. We were able to pay the man by transferring money, but I wanted to give the poor man a hug. I can not tell you how good it was to be on level dry ground.
He wished us a safe journey home and warned us about a stretch of road that was notorious for kangaroo crossings. It was 9:20pm by the time we left that place. Still with the journey home to go. Charlie had to stop at a petrol station to stretch her legs and calm down a bit. We blasted some innocent Disney songs to cheer us up but we just really wanted to get home and safely tucked in bed, away from mysterious lurking shadows and swamp lands.
It was near midnight when we got home. To this day we are still puzzled as to what we saw. This may not be a very exciting story but I can assure you this was all 100% true and it 100% scared the shit out of us. I have some screenshots to prove to you this really went down. In 2015 the area we went to did not have an accurate Goggle Map but I looked at it again today and now it shows the road as a no through road. Unfortunately we did not get any pictures of the “thing” we saw because: 1. We were absolutely terrified and frozen. 2. It moved faster than a human.
Here is before getting bogged taking the sunset photos: http://imgur.com/mAXoOsY
Here is what Google Maps was displaying in 2015: http://imgur.com/IKJeHhy
(You can see the time and the low battery on my phone)
Here is the Google Earth image of where we were. This is to show we almost drove into a goddamn river: http://imgur.com/Y7cKYmS
Here is the current Google Maps display of Frederick St: http://imgur.com/fWCFJpZ
(What it should have been)
And finally, here is a crappy picture of the tow truck dragging us: http://imgur.com/n5t8dhs
Hockadower 