AUSTRALIA A BIG COUNTRY part 1

Australia is the largest island continent in the world surrounded by water , with a landmass almost as big as the United States. The climate  can go from one extreme to another with snow in Tasmania which is an island state to the hot humidity of Northern Australin where crocodiles swim lazily in the sea and rivers looking for a meal.

The country is so big that it can take up to 11hrs to drive from Sydney to Brisbane in one go mainly because of the Pacific highway roadworks if you go by the coast , inland along the New England Highway is a better run and far more pleasant drive.

Once in Brisbane you might decide to drive to Roma west of Brisbane that would take about seven hours to do , if you want to continue onto Longreach that is another seven hours away.

However once past Roma which is considered to be the edge of the outback it is advisable to pull up for the night on account of the Roos as they are very active at night considering how hot it gets during the day.

A couple of years back I pulled into a motel for the night as it was getting dark a bloke  asked me how long it was to get to Brisbane I told him it was two days drive and it would be best to wait till the morning to head off.

Despite warnings from myself and a few others about the roos he set off saying he needed to get to Brisbane so off he goes in his car with no bullbars an hour later he comes back ,sure enough he had hit a roo , he was lucky he got off with minor damage to his car it could've been a lot worse.

Ironically I hit a roo the next morning and he was a big one that came bounding out of the bush and at the last moment he tried to avoid the collision but too late BANG! 

Needless to say we were both fortunate because as the roo was trying to avoid hitting my car he had twisted his body so he hit the side and spun off into the bush when I came to a stop all I had was a few small dents where he had hit .

Went to check on the Roo he was nowhere to be seen no doubt nursing a very sore body hopefully he recovered the lat time it was fortunate indeed as it would not have pretty if it had been a head on.

The next time I hit a roo was a few months back travelling to Roma in Queensland.

It was very early in the morning and still dark being the middle of Winter was driving and had dipped my lights to low beam because of traffic heading in the opposite direction once the road was clear I flipped on the high beam

There in the glare of the light lay a very large and very dead roo taking up the entire lane of the road fortunately there was no oncoming traffic was able to take evasive action but still hit it with left rear wheel which is on the near side .

It made a hell of a thump and I felt it , checking the car afterwards all there was was bits of fur and well you can imagine the rest once again the car was fine and it would've been a different story if I had hit it head on at 100kmhr .

Goes to show that Roos can strike anytime even in broad daylight the road trains keep driving thru the nights and in places the roads came be pretty thick with dead roos lying everywhere on the road not to mention the wedge tailed eagles feasting on the carcasses.

The buggers don't move when you drive towards them but glare at you as drive past saying that's their meal and believe they are huge birds.

So when driving in Astralia be aware of the hazards as it is a huge country that some cattle properties have paddocks the size of Belgium so if you see a sign at an outback petrol station last one for next 100kms or 400km make sure you fill up there as you do not want to run out if petrol in the middle of nowhere,

Now that most main roads are sealed there is a fair bit of traffic than there used to be thirty years ago as it easier to drive the outback now so much so that the Grey Nomads are out there in force towing their caravans and what have you as they travel around Australia in their retirement.