Tropical Road Kill. Twice.
Bundaberg -> Mackay, 10th February 2002
We woke up absolutely freezing this morning! The air-conditioning
was set on the coolest temperature at the highest power. Although we
were shivering, it made a nice change to not wake up swimming in our
own sweat. (Sorry about the mental image).
As I said, we were now in the process of speeding up the coast, so
we only spent one night in Bundaberg.
We made a short stop at an Internet cafe with a poster saying:
"Super-fast ISDN connection, the fastest Internet access in
Bundaburg!" Hmmm. Something wasn't right. This was, by far, the
slowest Internet cafe we've ever used. After waiting for 25 minutes
for Yahoo! Mail to load, we gave up and headed onwards and upwards.
The drive wasn't too bad. The weather was definitely getting hotter
and stickier. 4 hours later, we arrived in Rockhampton where we were
planning to spend the night. The heat was now becoming almost
unbearable! The act of simply sitting in the van, made you sweat
more than a whole basketball team!
We stopped in McDonalds, which thankfully had air-conditioning.
Quite amusingly, the ice-cream machine was broken, so we had to
settle for a cold drink. After contemplating the idea of motel
hunting in this extreme heat, we made a group decision to drive to
our next stop, Mackay. Another 3-4 hours away.
We'd now officially entered a 'Tropical' zone, we'd passed the
Tropic of Capricorn in Rockhampton. The brown, desert plants we saw
weeks ago, were now replaced by thick, green, luscious foliage. The
air was becoming much thicker and more humid. Banana trees were the
'pine trees' of this region.
Driving merrily along the highway, suddenly we heard a loud 'smack',
like a golf-ball hitting the windscreen. We quickly worked out what
it was. Tangled in with the windscreen wipers was the biggest flying
bugs we've ever seen, it was the size of a small bird! It had hit
the windscreen so hard that it was almost torn in two, but it was
still wriggling. After Stinge grabbed a photo, I turned the
windscreen wipers on. Big mistake. Now the whole windscreen was
covered in bright, yellow insect blood and I could hardly see out of
the window.
We soon make a stop to refuel and we undertake the major operation
to clean the windscreen. The bug was still alive, to we tried to
kill it as quickly & painlessly as possible. After a box of tissues
and 3 litres of water, the windscreen was clear and we continued
onwards.
As we drove, the sun started to set and the moon began to shine. The
heat began to subside, and everyone came back to life. We could now
talk without sweating buckets. Night driving is much more fun,
especially when on the boring, straight highways of Australia.
The bug wasn't the only thing we hit today. Now driving in complete
darkness, the only light was from our own headlights. There were no
streetlights, no buildings and very few passing cars. The others
were chatting away and I was focusing on the road. Suddenly, I saw a
small shape in our headlights, about 1 metre in front. I wasn't sure
what it was, it was small & furry about the size of a wombat, but a
bit thinner. It turned to face me, it's eyes wide with panic, the
headlights glinted off it's startled eyes. There was no chance. I
was travelling at 100km/hr, and it was less than 1 metre away. It
looked like it might go between the 2 wheels and survive. But then
we felt a big bump and heard a loud cracking. The car swerved a
little. The first roadkill that we caused. I'm sorry. The little guy
didn't stand a chance.
The rest of the journey was uneventful and we soon arrived in
Mackay. As it was dark, it was nice & cool, perfect for Motel
hunting. After a bit of driving around, we found a fairly nice one
that only cost $75 for the night. We checked the room and it was
fine. Quite new, clean, and air-conditioned.
About 5 minutes after checking in we immediately ran to the pool.
After about 7 hours of driving in the heat and sweating all day, we
really needed a nice cool dip.
The rest of the evening was spent swimming, before heading to bed.
Next Diary Entry >>
|
