A well-known chicken that lives at WA’s Sandfire Roadhouse has unexpectedly joined the grey nomad migration north … by hitching a ride in a caravan.
Unsuspecting Perth traveller, Cheryl Harman, was stunned when she arrived in Broome after a 320-kilometre drive from the roadhouse to find the runaway chook inside a caravan storage cupboard.
“I could hear this squeaking noise and I thought, “Okay what’s that?'” said Cheryl. “I saw these eyes looking at me so I realised then it was the chicken so I freaked out and jumped back and said, ‘There’s a chicken, there’s a chicken in the tunnel boot’.”
The chicken, formerly known as Salt and Pepper but now re-named Hitchhike, then jumped out of the caravan and started pecking away happily.
“It’s very, very tame,” Mrs Harman told the ABC. “It actually laid an egg in our tunnel boot.”
Roadhouse office manager Dorothy Taylor said it wasn’t the first time the chicken had snuck into a vehicle, and said it had actually ‘hitchhiked’ the 50 kilometres to Eighty Mile Beach three weeks ago before being returned.
“It has started to get into a few cars and caravans,” Ms Taylor told the ABC. “I think it’s got a taste of the travelling.”
Fare paid in full.. Thanks for the ride.
Now to get a ride back home.
We had a cat get into our tunnel boot from our nephews at Mackay. It was a very hot day and we didnt find it until the next morning, heard nothing so got quite a fright when it jumped out.