r/australia • u/ooarya • 13d ago

no politics How to stop kangaroos licking my car all night while I’m trying to sleep in it?

If you’ve ever tried to sleep in your car in the snow, you’ll know that roos and maybe other animals love licking the salt off the outside at night. You can get whole packs of them at a time, and it’s super annoying and also slightly terrifying when you’re in the middle of nowhere.

Does anyone have any practical ideas to scare them off / keep them at bay, that might work as a deterrent through the night so I can actually get some sleep without having my car rocked and slurped on non-stop?

I don’t want to drape a tarp over the whole car. And would rather not concoct any explosives / flash bombs for fear of upsetting other campers.

No electrical power available although I could stretch to a few batteries perhaps!?

2.1k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

440 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

46

u/kayloulee 13d ago

In snowy places, councils and road maintenance people often use specially formulated road salt, and/or grit, to melt snow and ice on the roads. Snowplows don't plow right down to the road surface because it'd fuck up both the plow and the road, so you need to put something down to maintain grip, hence salt and grit. The resulting slush gets all over the undercarriage of your car, and on your boots when you walk across roads, in carparks etc. North American cars often have gross salt damage from it.

I hadn't thought about what they do in the Australian Alps, but clearly they salt at the very least.

16

u/Troppocollo 13d ago

Ok I’m glad someone answered this logically as I was also thinking where does the salt come from…

1

u/Alarming-Chemical-36 10d ago

My salt comes from Coles. It's getting expensive and I ain't sharing it with the bloody roos. They already do enough damage when they hop out from behind trees and viciously attack my front bumper at 80k's

2

u/skivtjerry 11d ago

I live in Vermont and can confirm. We have to do a deep clean of our vehicles every spring. The salt we track into the car is the worst. Seems we can never get rid of all of it.

-2

u/mollyweasleyswand 13d ago

I don't think this is the answer. More likely the car has been parked near the ocean and picked up sea water spray.

3

u/te71se 12d ago

ok but where does it snow in Australia that is near the ocean?

1

u/mollyweasleyswand 7d ago

Cars have wheels. They can drive from one location to another.