Night Driving

A combination really.
1. Sorry I hit the echidna.
2. The tyre was destroyed beyond repair,was new, and had to be replaced.
3. I think you appreciate that "Fogline" is the white strip on the outside edge of the road.
4.Last but not least discipline/morning person...dunno...just wont drive at night again. Fingers crossed.
JimDi

Reasonably confident on that point as during the previous two days driving I had managed to avoid...wait for it,two kangaroos a snake and four lizards.
JimDi

No ,car and van stayed on the bitumen at all times. Swerving off road is not a habit of mine.
On inspection the next morning the tyre was full of quills and pronounced unrepairable. Happens all the time according to the tyre service owner.
JimDi

Should have added that the tyre was an almost new (less than 10000klm) Dunlop Grandtrek AT2.
JimDi

Interesting... saw plenty of echidnas on the road in tassie and didn't realise what a hazard they were.

Nor me until now. Generally try and avoid hitting anything with my rig. The damage to make it worse is not apparent but the tyre service bloke saw it almost immediately.
Even when removed and replaced the tyre looks undamaged, but the quills on closer inspection absolutely riddled the tyre. Most of the quills from what I could see penetrated thru the tyre tread and not the walls.
JimDi

Towing our van after dusk is deffinitely a no no with us too JimDi, after a hairy drive through a 100k kangaroo alley, whilst running late for our first nights stop at Gulgong N.S.W. one trip.
Just diverting, a mate was coming back from W.A. a couple of years ago, and ran over a very dead and very bloated wombat on the Nullabor, and the mess to the underside of his vehicle, not to mention the bloody caravan was sickening to say the least. This was in broad daylight!!! Realised at the last minute it wasn't going to move off and swerving by then was not an option.
Fred.

Usually stick to say 9am to 3pm. But was camped beside the road in the Pilliga NSW. Trucks were noisy and could not sleep because of them. Just too close to the road.
But live and learn as they say.
JimDi

Our bush camp in my rig pics is in the Pillaga off the Newell H'way..will be there at Easter..

Can we safely assume, based on the amount of quills embedded in the tyre, that the echidna didn't make it?

I bought a motorbike fairly cheap a long while ago after the owner hit an echidna. Both Front and rear instantly deflated. He thought something had hit him from the side it went over so fast.

Never the less he survived and so did the bike as it was mostly only side grazing and mostly on the side of the road. Couldn't get his nerve up again to go back riding so I got it at a good price.

Since then I have always given a wide berth to the mobile pin cushions. Although I did run over a small piece of tube that I didn't see that had a very similar effect (on the same bike as well) without the road acting as a cushion.

My nighttime memories of the Pilliga are one of arriving very late one night and setting up camp only to be carried off by the mozzies. I used a mozzie net but had to wear work boots to keep them from biting my toes. It was so hot I couldn't do much else. Beaut spot though.

Cheers Cam

Back when I was young, a friend and I drove in my Telstar from Brissy to Gladstone to catch a ferry to dive at Heron Island. Being too stingy for accommodation we decided to leave at midnight and get there about 6am.

On the trip I noticed there were quite a few roos around, so when I ended up behind a big truck I was happy to sit there since he was doing a good speed and I thought that it would ensure that the road was clear of roos.

Well, it turns out the clearance of a truck is somewhat greater than a telstar and I don't know if it was old or new, but all of a sudden from the middle of the truck I see this roo carcass on the road. I decided I'd rather hit it in the middle of the car rather than risk swerving and bumping a wheel. There was a scraping noise and a squishy thunk.

After pulling over to assess the damage, the car was fine, but you could see tufts of fur on one of the bars underneath. And it smelt for quite a few days afterward.

-geoff

Coming back towards Cairns from the tablelands, my daughter and her flatmate were in flatmate's boyfriend's Pajero (he didn't know - he was out on a dive boat). We were following a good way behind because i had a camera. The girls couldn't avoid a roo carcase on a corner, and got a flat - a piece of bone embedded in the tyre. Driver was panicking as she had to get back and meet the dive boat. She was English, and didn't know what to do; especially when my husband asked about and described the lock nut key - 'oh i think i took in inside when i last cleaned the car; i didn't know what it was'. Luckily she was wrong and i eventually found it in the car.

Luck of the draw is if the tyre is terminally ruined, it is always the newest.

Motherhen