foggy today

Just had a whole week below 10 degrees which is extremely rare for this part of Australia and a week inside the clouds and fog as well at my place. I had to get out for a few km on the 'bike, was going cabin crazy. Took me 20 minutes to start the damn thing because after 18 months of regularly riding it I still forget which way the choke is meant to be and which way turns the petrol on .... anyway, just a couple of pics of nothing much for you (they always come out smaller on this forum for some reason but if you click on them they will enlarge a bit):
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This is a local road, the camera lies, amazingly it picks up far more light than the human eye does, to me it was very foggy!
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The foggy paddocks are all I can see as I ride along. I turned back after just 25 km as there were so many kangaroos on the road. For some reason they lose any sense they ever had on foggy days and sit in the road in groups of half a dozen or more. They stand up to 2 meters tall and weigh up to 95 kg. They don't bother moving until you are just a couple of meters away and are just as likely to jump into you as away - I got fed up of slowing to 10kph and went home! I should have gone the other way home, these potholes are real bone-shaking, back-breaking bastards on a 'bike!
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Jape,

Surely you are making up the part about swarms of laggard kangaroos in the road. Those are mythical beasts that some expatriated convict wag dreamed up centuries ago, and it's a joke that just keeps on giving. If they were real -- especially those 200cm abominable yeti kangaroos -- there'd be pix to prove it. All I see is fog and potholes.

cheers

Not mythical my friend, a crossbreed between imported feral rabbits and the indiginous BUNYIP - pic below
http://www.thisisapokalipsis.com/wp-...unyip_1890.jpg
i got no photos because I always have my bow and arrow cocked and ready when they are about - difficult enough steering 'no hands' with my knees without wielding a camera as well, sorry.
I will take my camera soon when the fog lifts and we get a sunny day and get a pic when they are withdrawn to the shrubbery.
The potholes are made when their fifth limb, a massive clublike tail, hits the ground as they hop toward you menacingly ...
There is a friendly version, hangs around the billabongs or mudholes in the northern territories; it mated with a frill necked lizard eons ago, and is rather partial to 4X beer apparently.
http://members.iinet.com.au/~bunyip/bunyip.JPG

Sorry, friend, but I'm no sucker. Those images were photoshopped!

Count me a skeptic or, if you must, a sceptic.

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Originally Posted by jape

I turned back after just 25 km as there were so many kangaroos on the road. For some reason they lose any sense they ever had on foggy days and sit in the road in groups of half a dozen or more. They stand up to 2 meters tall and weigh up to 95 kg. They don't bother moving until you are just a couple of meters away and are just as likely to jump into you as away - I got fed up of slowing to 10kph and went home! I should have gone the other way home, these potholes are real bone-shaking, back-breaking bastards on a 'bike!
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Cool, they are almost like reindeers in Lapland except reindeers are much smaller and don't let you come as close.

I have by the way watched from tv kangaroos fightning and it looked very nasty. It appears they could beat the hell out of people if angered.

Thanks of the very good pictures, looked very much like Norway xD Seriously.

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This is just a juvenile male came to visit my place this arvo, he would stand about 1.5 metres upright. Daddy would be about 1.8 to 2 meters tall and a lot heavier, he kicked this one out of the mob once his balls dropped. They are a bit bigger road hazard than a rabbit eh? They make more of a mess of your car as they have a habit of exploding through the screen and landing on your lap still kicking, and would likely kill a motorcyclist that hit them. When they fight they sit back on the tail and whack their back legs and claws into the gut of their opponent. They drag dogs as big as german shepherds into dams (ponds), rip them open and hold them under water to drown. Not bad for a grass eater. Tasty too.

Good grief. That tail looks as thick and strong as an anaconda! Are these critters smarter that your average rodent? Smarter than deer? Ever hear them tiptoeing around your doors and windows at night?

Sheesh, would hate to have one decide he didn't like me....

cheers

Does kangaroos ever attach humans?

They aren't very wary of us, not enough human contact over millennia I guess or perhaps because although seemingly not at all clever, they are master of their land. They almost seem arrogant. I live with them in daily contact right up to my house, day or night. They just don't care about me, the joeys (youngsters) just sit and look at me until I am just a couple of meters away, the females and juveniles tend to hop off when I am at three or four meters and the big bugger has had a few cudgel fights with me so he stamps, then goes when I am ten to fifteen meters. He has learned that I can throw sticks as well as whack him with them. You have to teach the mob living in your area and they pass it down the line through generations but many a young male needs a stick or a boot. You ALWAYS have a stick with you because of snakes. Kangaroos can harm kids accidentally, especially when cornered. They tend to run over them but do sometimes grapple. Come between a buck male and a female he fancies if he is feeling territorial and he will grapple with front arms and claws, lean back and disembowel you. Serious harm happens rarely but attacks are quite common, usually on new suburbs and golf courses and the like where they get too used to us.

http://www.amazingaustralia.com.au/a...oo_attacks.htm and of course - just search yutoob for 'kangaroo attacks', there are some funny ones.

True stories:
Number 1. aboriginals males carried all their small items (and sometimes their own tackle) tucked inside a big 'roo's scrotum tied round their waist.
Number 2. like many mammals the male 'roo has a big bone in his penis and the kangaroo just has one of them but other related marsupials have up to four of the things. Females correspondingly have a matching set of uteri.
Number 3. One night I went out for the usual pee down the garden in the dark, peed on a 'roo and when he stood up and grunted a warning a foot in front of me I nearly did more than pee!
Number 4. as I write this I can hear the loud munching as one mows the lawn for me, literally right under the window.

Darn what nasty mammals they can be xD I would for sure keep my heavy duty tire lever ready when camping in Australia. I like animals but I don't want them to mess with me, and it appears one or two good knocks with german steel could be needed for the Kangaroo to understand certain things.

Your pics remind me of heathcote where I grew up jape, I remember geting up on the winter mornings and breaking the ice on the outside water barrel for a cool drink then going for a ride through the forest in the cool morning fog (on my xr75). Nothing like up here even the cool mornings are not realy cool in comparison.
I think roos are beautiful, when I was a kid we had a mob on our farm that was so relaxed with me that I could hand feed them, I use to often just hang out with them during the day, the big male was a little scary but I was never a threat to him or his girls, whenever he aproached me I used a submisive posture and he was always cool. I think he eventualy accepted me as just another girl in his mob.

Yeah, I am in Drummond, not so far away from there, bit colder though. We used to get two or three hard frosts a year, never the two weeks or more of frost like this month alone. I am thinking of selling up and getting a delivery van to live in, further up north and a few degrees warmer!

I think our foreign forum friends think I was exaggerating, they will find out if they ever visit. Desert reds are bigger still eh?

There are three large dead 'roos on the roadside within ten km. of my home this week alone. Something timely for the new season's fledgling crows to chew on I reckon. I ride my m'bike very slowly at certain points on the roads at night, I dislike the way they look at you, eyes shining in the headlight from the road edge then just as you get near and think all is well they hop right into your path ... my heart won't take it any more!

BTW, how ever do you act submissive to a big male roo ....? lol Guess it just ain't in my genetics, I thump the bugger instead! I get on alright with them really, they were here before me after all. I was chopping new growth back today with an axe, two young roos yawning and scratching in the morning sunshine just feet away couldn't even be bothered to get up.

Hell yea the big reds are huge, I haven’t had much interaction with them but they do make me wary. As a kid it's easy to be submissive to a roo, rule 1 don’t look him in the eye rule 2 lay down or crouch down as small as you can on the ground and look like your foraging, if you notice the males stand tall just before they get a bit antsy? that’s them asserting their dominance, if you don’t challenge them and reduce your height/size they are less likely to see your as attempting to be dominant. Probably easier for me being female but works the same for guys to. My grandfather taught me how to interact with the roos when I was just a little tacker.

The opposite rules for encounters with perentie monitors if your out in the centre, rule 1 the only thing they respect is bigger lizards, rule 2 everything including you is seen as either food or a bigger lizard. You need to appear to be a bigger lizard. Stand as tall as you can and wave your arms around use a stick if you can to increase the perception of size. My pop taught me lots of good stuff, he was an old bush timber cutter of the old school variety (broad axe days).
I told this to a friend once when we were in the centre and he didn’t believe me so when we saw a decent size perentie he got down and mimicked a lizard suffice to say the encounter got a lot closer than he was comfortable with for a bit (I was standing on the cruiser bonnet, I'm not silly)

Quite true about the monitor lizards folks, if you don't stand tall, they will attack! And they are big buggers too, the Perente Monitor is over 2 metres long. Trouble is, if you stand too tall, they think you are a tree and climb up ya using their nasty claws to get a grip and then they sit on your head.