warning: contins graphic images

sometimes things seem to just fall into place. God just smiles upon you and gives you something you will always remember. yesterday was one of those times.

i had just finished doing some web-based research on the kangaroo (i.e. looking up video's of them fighting things on youtube). discussing it with some of the locals, i was sad to say that i had never even seen one.

they kept telling me how many kangaroos they had seen, about how they are everywhere. " where are they all hiding then? if there all over australia, why have i not seen one yet?" i was becoming a tad indignant. i've been in australia for two weeks and i hadn't seen a single kangaroo.

then we hit one with our car.

i saw it hopping on the side of the road. it was adorable and awkward all at the same time. then it hopped its little self right under our speeding car.

-what was that?
-i think it was a kangaroo.
-is it dead?
-i think so.
-that's the first kangaroo i've ever seen.
-should we turn around and have a look?
-absolutely!

we pull a quick u-turn. a few minutes later, our driver was pulling the dead kangaroo across the street. we mourned the loss of the creature. then we began taking pictures.

okay, maybe we didn't respect the sanctity of kangaroo life. but i couldn't resist getting a picture like this:

for the record, the smiling gentleman (named pisa) holding the kangaroo was the one that killed it. we then moved it off the road to avoid the certain possibility of future cars from running over it. evidently this happens quite a bit because kangaroos are attracted to the lights of cars. i'll add the following to my research and findings about the kangaroo:

in a fight between small kangaroo and car, kangaroo loses.

it is obviously kind of sad that the car ended up killing the kangaroo. but if you're going to see a kangaroo for the first and possibly only time, might as well make it memorable.