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at least 4% inches (12 cm) in width. The men measured the distances between six footprints over a length of 19 feet 10 inches (6.05 m). The left- to-right impressions were three feet 11 inches apart (1.2 m), leaving an average stride of nearly 3% feet (1.1 m). The animal had stridden across quite open country to enter the area where the footprints were found, so, unless this had occurred at night, the Burrunjor responsible could not have helped but be seen by property owners and others. As the men judged the impressions to be only a day old and heading west to east, they wondered if they should attempt to follow the monstrous creature but their common sense prevailed. The men decided that the maker of these footprints had to be at least 19 feet (5.8 m), perhaps 20 feet (6.1 m), in height. My wife Heather and I arrived in the Gulf country in October 2002 to investigate the Burrunjor personally. I had heard that fresh tracks of an enormous reptilian beast were claimed to have been found by people in the Burketown district, inland from the Gulf, on the Albert River in 2001, and again on the Leichhardt River, south of Floraville, in August 2002. North of Burketown, across Pascoe Inlet at Point Tarrant, fresh tracks of a "two-legged reptile" were claimed to have been found on a mud flat by Aboriginal fishermen in 1979. Soon afterwards, fresh mudflat Burrunjor track impressions were found in that district and Aborigines began avoiding the area. In early 1992, Aborigines found more large three-toed impressions of the enigmatic Burrunjor in the same area. In the past, its huge tracks have been claimed found over a wide area of the inland, in places such as the Croydon district and the Gilbert River near Mount Clark, Queensland. They turned up in the Weipa area in 1990 and in the Aurukun region of western coastal Cape York Peninsula in 1998. while moving its tail from side to side. The beast began moving in their direction, so they "rode off quick smart". The Gregory Range, southeast of Normanton, is a region of Burrunjor folklore extending back generations, and an ancient Aboriginal rock engraving of the giant is known to a few people in the Mount Surprise area. In 1977, an Aboriginal couple chanced upon a Burrunjor, up to 20 feet in height, feeding upon a black bullock it had carried off from a cattle station in the Normanton district. The grey-skinned monster resembled a Tyrannosaurus, they claimed later. They ran from the scrub they were in, screaming in terror. Reaching their four-wheel-drive vehicle, they drove out of that place as fast as they could. A man-sized, blackish-brown- coloured bipedal reptile was claimed seen deep in the Gulf scrub somewhere near Arnhem Land's eastern base country in 1982 by several Aborigines and whites on a cattle muster. It was seen to bound through scrub at a considerable pace, parallel with the direction of the horsemen. It did not show any fear of them but disappeared into the scrub. Eyewitness reports Gulf bushmen have many tales to tell of mystery animals seen hereabouts and in the Gulf waters. But when it comes to Burrunjor, the height and proportions of this reptile increase depending upon the pub in which you meet these hardy fellows! Yet despite the tall tales the researcher has to put up with, there are stories deserving further investigation, such as that of Jack and Jane Mulholland, who in 1970 were driving in their four-wheel-drive vehicle from Floraville to the Flinders River. The date was 9 September and the time about 11 am as Jack was driving along a dirt road, when suddenly they both spotted a large shape moving through the roadside scrub. Jane later described the creature coming into view as "a fearsome animal". Jack, on the other hand, described it as a "20- foot-tall 'Tyrannosaurus-like' monster with a mottled skin colouration". Back in 1922, in the country north of Cloncurry, south of the Gulf, stockmen claimed to have seen "a big lizard monster" that was standing upon two legs and observing them seen Copyright © Rex Gilroy 2006. Sketch of Tyrannosaurus rex more NEXUS ¢ 65 DECEMBER 2008 — JANUARY 2009 www.nexusmagazine.com