shadowfire

Thanks Dan for the great story - I thorougly enjoyed it! Looking forward to the next one. I've been meaning to write a note for ages, but with starting a new job, building my first house and moving I've been crazy busy this year. So, belated thanks from Aussieland for many hours of enjoyable reading

Hmm, very happy that Brandon did the right thing here. My mind kept conjuring up all the worst case scenarios Have a good time while your away CJ!

No-one has even commented on Brandon's comment about playing in Australia yet. I chuckled over the link between the two story threads

Yeah, I agree with CJ - it really is totally impractical. The stretch of road I was talking about above is the Sturt Highway, which goes from Adelaide to about 2hrs south of Sydney (a distance of ~1200km). The state governments have actually tried to reduce the speed limits in some areas several times, and the effect has been an increase in accidents due to driver fatigue. So it seems to be a no win situation. People who travel in these areas frequently know to watch out for Roo's when driving at dusk/night - it's the only way to protect you, your car and the wildlife Looking forward to the next chapter CJ! (I soo wouldn't want to be in Eric's place right now ...)

I grew up in the country and I can tell ya that "roo bars" (most people call them bull bars) don't really protect you or your car very much. Kangaroo's are really solid and do a lot of damage to cars. If you hit one at 100km/hr it's like hitting a cement & steel pillar. There isn't much likelyhood that you will be walking away from the accident. When the drought started a few years ago tens of thousands of kangaroos and emu's migrated south from New South Wales into Victoria and South Australia along the Murray River. They were a massive pest eating all vegetation in sight and causing large amounts of damage. You wanted to be really careful driving at night - there were lots of bad accidents that year, and every day you would see more dead Kangaroos on the side of the road. Kangaroos are NOT cudly friendly creatures at all. They are all muscle and can really hurt you if you get too close to them

Wikipedia answer's everything: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_and_te...es_of_Australia I couldn't let all these Australian lurker comments go by without posting. /wave from Adelaide Oh, love the story CJ, only issue with it is waiting for the new chapter every week! Keep up the good work.