---
title: "Watch Your Worst Car Ferry Nightmare Come True"
description: "“Oh my god! Oh my god! No!”"
date: "2017-01-04"
modified: "2017-01-05"
authors:
  - name: "Max Prince"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/max-prince"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/news/6790/watch-your-worst-car-ferry-nightmare-come-true"
categories:
  - "News"
  - "Watch This"
tags:
  - "4x4"
  - "Australia"
  - "ferry"
  - "Land Cruiser"
  - "Ships"
---

# Watch Your Worst Car Ferry Nightmare Come True

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/archive-images/screen_shot_2017-01-03_at_2.48.32_pm.png>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

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](<https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/reports-a-fourwheeldrive-vehicle-has-fallen-from-car-ferry-near-fraser-island/news-story/4050c89069f84998edfd3d8a2c6eea66>). 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](<https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1739180393075527&set=p.1739180393075527&type=3&theater>) shows, and hadn’t yet raised the ramp. Blame the driver, blame the crew, [blame Toyota](<https://www.offroad80s.com/consensus-on-80-s-handbrake-constructive-info-required-t10404.html>). Doesn’t matter. For this 4x4 group, it was just a very inauspicious beginning to the New Year…

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://twitter.com/themaxprince>)