We got back to the camp on Tuesday but the generator was officially buggered. Without electricity we really can’t stay out here, so after only 24 hours, we decided to drive back to Broome. It took the whole day to pack up and get back on the road, so it was nearly 8pm before we left camp.
About 120kms outside of Broome we hit a bull. There are cattle all along the road and you see road kill all over the place. It’s dangerous during the day, but even worse at night. The bull paused at the side of the road, looked like it was going to run away, then at the last minute turned and ran right across our path. We hit it pretty hard, but we swerved enough for it to take a glancing blow down the drivers side of the car. If it had been two steps forward and we had hit it head on, it would have been a lot worse.
We pulled over to the side of the road to inspect the damage and the husband (who was following behind in another vehicle) stopped to help. The vehicle was still running, but there was a lot of damage to the front and the headlights were scattered all along the road. The bull had landed in the middle of the road and was literally laying across the dividing line. There was quite a bit of traffic on this remote road (maybe one car every five minutes) and it is mustering season, so huge road trains barrel along it at all hours of the day and night. We couldn’t just leave the bull as a hazard, so we turned around to tow it off to the side of the road.
It was scary enough being on a remote stretch of red outback road with the huge expanse of starry sky dwarfing the surrounding bush. It was very dark and we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes. We had to stop in the middle of the road to tether the bull to the tow bar and flash our lights wildly at the oncoming traffic hoping that they would see us and stop and not slam straight into us in the dark.
We were about 5 meters from the bull shining our headlights to on the animal and flashing wildly at an oncoming car. The bull started moving. It wasn’t dead after all. It was lifting its head and making slow efforts to get to its feet, blood dripping from its nose and mouth.
The oncoming car didn’t slow down at all. Just as the bull lifted its head, the car struck it with a sickening thud, right in front of us. The car didn’t slow down, didn’t stop, didn’t want to find out if we were okay. It just continued on its way.
We have been considering what sort of idiot (or bastard) wouldn’t stop if they saw an accident on a remote, isolated road in the middle of the night. We decided they must have seen the movie “Wolf Creek” (a horror movie filmed in the area about a psycho who kills people who are broken down by the side of the road - based on a true story).
Anyway, we hitched the (now dead) bull to the back of the car and pulled it to the side of the road. A tour bus stopped to help. The car was a rental that was on loan while the family car was in for repairs. We decided to pick up the headlights from the side of the road. It was dark. I picked up the shattered headlights and they were damp. I spent the next two hours driving into town wondering if it was mud or cow’s brains on my hands.
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