Watch Your Worst Car Ferry Nightmare Come True

“Oh my god! Oh my god! No!”

byMax Prince|
Watch This photo
Share

0

Guided 4x4 tours are big business in Australia. It’s easy to see why: The country is beautiful, and vast, and a bit wild. So when tourists go overlanding—be it a scenic trundle along the coastline or gnarly plunge across the outback—local knowledge and capable rigs are a boon. But even the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

Just ask Chlöe Swift. She was traveling in a guided 4x4 convoy with Rainbow Beach Adventure Co. over the weekend. After boarding a ferry from Inskip Point to Fraser Island, members of her group noticed their caboose, a silver Toyota Land Cruiser 80, rolling backwards off the barge. Swift got her cell phone out just in time to catch the slow-moving disaster unfold:

Ooof.

Luckily, nobody was inside the Land Cruiser when it fell. But the group’s passports, cell phones, and credit cards all were, according to local news. The truck reportedly sank within minutes.

In a Facebook comment, Swift says that while the Toyota’s handbrake was engaged, it was not left in gear. The ferry had traveled just a few hundred feet, as another witness photo shows, and hadn’t yet raised the ramp. Blame the driver, blame the crew, blame Toyota. Doesn’t matter. For this 4x4 group, it was just a very inauspicious beginning to the New Year…

stripe
Watch This