Carnage on Winton Road

There is a sadness in riding the Winton Road, also known as the Kennedy Development Road, from Boulia into Winton. Strewn across miles and miles of the road are hundreds of bodies of kangaroos, slammed into by heavy metal vehicles speeding across the flat landscape.

Every single kilometer (notice that I am using the word “kilometer,” and not “mile” because the distance of a kilometer is even shorter than a mile) has at least one dead kangaroo body. This is not hyperbole on my part, or exaggeration to make a point. This is literal. The road is strewn with dead bodies.

Kangaroos have hopped across this landscape for centuries. The difference between a dirt field and a paved road is not something they know. And trucks and heavy off-road vehicles race through here as if they were being chased by the specter of the min-min light.

SIDE EXPLANATION: Boulia markets itself as "Land of the Min-Min Light." The story has it that a pony rider in the mid 1800s was riding from Winton to Boulia. When he passed what was once the Min Min hotel, but now a cemetery, he saw an eerie light emanating from the cemetery. He was so scared, that he had his horse dash several hundred kilometers to Boulia, with the ghostly light following all the way, arriving there fully exhausted.

Some kangaroo bodies are old. But a number of bodies are recent, for you can smell its rotting carcass as you pass. Still others are brand new, for the full bodies are recognizable and they don’t stink.

The scene reminds me of a segment from the movie “Dances With Wolves” a western about the USA in the mid 1800’s. Bison roamed the continent by the thousands; they were everywhere. For sport, people from trains shot the bison en masse, never realizing that killing them off like that would devastate the herd. Today, the mighty bison no longer roams the continent, and only a few are left in select protected places.

While riding, people said to me that I’ll see a lot of kangaroos in Queensland. I didn’t see any hopping around on this road. But I did see hundreds, as they said, but not in the way they suggested.

The most heart-wrenching picture was when I came across a fetus on the road. From afar, I saw falcons sitting on posts, all in a row. I realized then that they were eyeing some body on the road. As I rode up, I saw the body of one kangaroo, with its head still propped up. That’s strange, I thought, to be dead with one’s head still up. But then I realized: it was not dead! Its hind quarters have been devastated in a crash into a metal vehicle, so it couldn’t move. But it was conscious– and able to feel! And it was looking at something on the road. It was her fetus. Somehow, the collision sent the fetus out of her, and there it was, dead on the road. The mother kangaroo looked at me with painful eyes, as if to say, “Help me, please help me.”

Holding my breath was all I could do to not scream out loud to the universe. If I had a gun, I would have shot the mother kangaroo to take her out of her misery. No car would see her, much less stop, as they whizz by at 60 mph (100kph). She would have to suffer some more, and if the winds of fate are favorable, die by the end of the day. Knowing I was powerless to do anything, I put my right foot on the pedal, and moved away as she watched.

I cried most of the way into Winton, stopping once in a while to wipe away the tears so I can see the road.

That is how I ended the last day of my outback ride.